Golden Horn

I

OFFICE OF THE MILITARY SECRETARY TO
THE GOVERNOR-OENERAL OF INDIA.

RULES FOR THE A.-D.-O.’s LIBRARY.

1. This Library is strictly for the use of His
Excellency, his family and the Personal Staff.

2. The Library will remain open on week days
only between the hours of 10 a.m. and 12 noon, and
2 p.M. and 4-p.m.

3. Readers are allowed to take only three books a
fortnight and after these are-returned, new books will
be issued.

4. Readers taking books out will ensure that they
have filled in particulars in the Library Register
maintained by Captain Davinder Singh, A.-D.-C^ i/c.,
Library. No Books will he isstied from the Library
without his knowledge.

5. xYll care should be taken of the books and under
no circumstances should be given to anyone on loan.

6. For any loss or damage, current cost of the
book(s) will be realised.

D. N. Prakash, Sqn.-Leader,

Dy. Military Secy, to the Governor-General.

OOLDErsT HCOR^NT

GOLDEN HORN

by

FRANCIS YEATS-BROWN

Author of
Bengal Lancer

LONDON

VICTOR GOLLANCZ LTD
14 Henrietta Street Govent Garden

1932

Printed in Great Britain hy

The Camelot Press Ltd., London and Southanapton

To

E. F. BENSON

AUTHOR’S NOTE
TO “GOLDEN HORN”

THIRTEEN YEARS Ego I wTOtc a book Called Caught by
the Turks, of which fewer than a thousand copies were
sold. Few people therefore read it, eind fewer still will
remember it.

In the present book I have incorporated (between
pages 107 2md 268) a good deal of material from those
forgotten pages, but with large revisions in both matter
and manner. If any reader should come across passages
which seem familiar I shall offer him my apologies, and
be surprised and flattered.

F. Y.-B.

London, July 22nd, 1932.

I

CONTENTS

Chapter i. In Yildiz Kiosk (1908) page 9

n. The End of the Red Sultan (1909) 34

ni. Vultures of Christendom (1912) 67

rv. The Day of Wrath (1914) 91

V. Baghdad (1915) 107

VI. Mosul (1915) 131

vn. Out of Great Tribulation (1915-1918) 154

vm. Constantinople (July 1918) 183

ES. Josephine (July-September 1918) 202

X. An Emergency Exit (September 1918) 230

XI. Stambul Submits (October 1918) 269

Epilogue 280

CHAPTER I

IN YILDIZ KIOSK

Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle
Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime.

Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle.

Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime ?

Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine,

And all save the spirit of man is divine ?

’Tis the clime of the East, ’tis the land of the Sun —

Gan he smile on such deeds as his children have done ?

Byron.

O N A SUMMER evening in the year of the Hejira 1326,
being the year of Grace 1908, Abdul Hcunid II, the
Damned, the Red Sultan, the Great Assassin (as Europe
called him) the Lord of Two Continents and Two Oceans,
the Shadow of the Most High, the Protector of Kings (as
he called himself) sat at a piano in the Little Mabeyn^
of his Palace of Yildiz Kiosk, playing an air from Mozart
to a rather frightened slave-girl.

He was smoking a fragrant, freshly-rolled cigarette,
prepared by Mustafa, his chief go-between, who some-
times inserted the djourml of a spy in his Sublimity’s
private tobacco box. The last message had been that the
situation in Salonika was very grave ; and Abdul Hamid
felt that unless he took some respite from the cares of
State he would go mad, like his tmcle and his elder
brother, the last two Sultans. For more than thirty years
he had been pulling strings to keep his ramshackle
Empire togelher, and now they had entangled him :
he was impotent, harassed, i nfi rm through overwork,
1 The private harem.

10

GOLDEN HORN

although he was only sixty-six. Qyi trop embrasse, mal itreint.

Not that Abdul Hamid had ever indulged in excesses
like his predecessors. He had always been careful of his
health. In his younger days he had ridden magnificent
Arab stallions, carpentered, rowed on the artificial lake
of Yildiz Kiosk, studied zoology cind black magic, and
had been so expert with a revolver that he rarely missed
a thrown orange. To-day he was still a skilful carver, and
a dead shot, but he worked so hard that he had few
amusements. The white odalisques from Georgia and
Circassia who came as yearly tribute to the Palace were
neglected ; indeed, of late years he had discouraged the
supply of concubines, of whatever colour, deeming them
tmsuitable for a modem monarch. The child beside him
this evening (whom he had seen dancing at his eldest
daughter’s house) was no more to him than one of his
charming Angora cats.

Abruptly Abdul Hamid stopped playing and faced
round to the door with a jerk, his hand flying to the
pocket where he always kept a loaded revolver.

It was his Highness the Grand Eunuch, Djevher Agha,
Dar-us-sadet-us-sharif-aghassyt Guardian of the Gates of
Felicity, who had entered, and now advanced towards the
Sultan, bending his immense body almost double in loop
upon loop of low salaams.

Arrived at the correct distance firom his master, he
stood with head abased, his innumerable chins melting
into a mountain of flesh. Incongruously, the hands that
were crossed upon his paunch were as thin-wristcd as a
girl’s. In them he held a document : an urgent despatch
no doubt, or he would not have ventured into the little
Mabeyn at such an hour.

IN YILDIZ KIOSK II

" See what he wants, Meste Alem,” said the Sultan
to his companion.

The child took a paper from his enormous Highness,
and carried it to the Sultan, who glanced at the seal
before accepting it, to see if the wax had melted. It had
done so, which was a proof that it had passed through
the disinfecting oven ; otherwise he would have refused
to break it. Microbes were his second obsession : assassins
the first.

The document was an official report from Salonika,
whose tenor disturbed him greatly. He forgot the eunuch,
forgot Mest6 Alem (she had hoped for much from that
evening) and remembered only to light another cigarette.

Who was this Major Niazi Bey, who had looted four
thousand medjidiehs^ fi:om a battalion treasure-chest (leav-
ing a receipt therefor and an insolent declaration that
he was taking up arms on behalf of reforms for Moslems
and Christians alike) and gone blustering and gallivanting
away to the hills of Resna with a couple of hundred
soldiers and brigands ? The latest news from Macedonia
was that this Niazi and a certain Enver Bey had set up a
government on their own account. Should they be en-
ticed to the Palace for the usud bowstring and cup of
poisoned coffee, or could they be more conveniently
blotted out in the mountains of Albania ?

His spies had moved clumsily, damn thdr livers, and
their reports to him had been nothing but lies. Their in-
structions had been to arrest the officers of the Third Army
Corps in Macedonia who belonged to a secret society
called the Committee of Union and Progress. Instead of
doing so, they cowered in the bazaars of Salonika, afiraid

1 £500.

12

GOLDEN HORN

to move, because their errand had become known to the
Committee directly they arrived.

Were there, then, traitors in the Palace itself? Abdul
Hamid did not doubt it. The Committee, he knew, was
afiSliated to the Masonic Order of the Grand Orient, and
maintained two flourishing Lodges — Macedonia risorta and
Labor et /««:— which he had not dared to close for fear of
complications with the Italian Ambassador. That inter-
national octopus the Grand Orient — so diSerent from
Anglo-Saxon Masonry — ^had tentacles everywhere, from
the boot-blacks of New York to the lickspittle Levantine
pashas of Constantinople. Even here in his Palace he
was surrounded by knaves and fools.

There was no one he could trust : not his relations,
nor his women, nor his thousand servants, nor his five
thousand pampered Albanian troops. As to his Ministers
— ^what Sultan for the last hundred years had been even
fairly well served? Of the creatures whom he had found
installed as Palace Pashas when he girded on the Sword
of Othman,^ one had been bought by his mad uncle in
the slave-market of Constantinople to gratify some
natural or urmaturaJ whim of the reigning Sultan,
another had been taken out of a Punch and Judy show,
and yet another had been a pimp. Nor were his present
councillors made of nobler day : their Excellencies of the
Palace were puppets, with medals on their padded, uni-
forms as thick as scales upon a herring, but with neither
brains above nor bowels of mercy beneath the glitter.

There must be a Council,” said Abdul Hamid.

“ Send for the Grand Vizier, the Gommander-in-Chief
and my two Chief Secretaries.”

to of Othman was a ceremony corresponding

IN YILDIZ KIOSK I3

The Guardian of the Gates of Felicity bowed to the
ground.

Mest6 Alem stared at him, thinking how like a black
jelly-fish he looked. She wondered how her friend, the
little Egyptian slave who was his mistress could tolerate
such a lover ? True, Djevher Agha was rich and there was
a fascination about the subtle ways of the unsexed . . .
But !

“ Send for the Astrologer also,” said the Sultan.

Djevher Agha backed out of the room to execute these
commands. The Sultan sighed, turned to the piano again,
picked up another cigarette.

Mest6 Alem ran towards him with a lighted match,
but he shrank back firom her in sudden horror and hate, his
hand clutching his pistol again.

Meste stopped. The Sultan quickly recovered himself,
knowing now that she did not intend to strangle him.
But he signed to her to keep her distance and lit his own
cigarette.

“ You should have danced for me, litde girl,” he said,
“ and I should have enjoyed it, if I had had the time.
But now I must attend to politics,”

Mestd Alem rose to go, and stood before her master
with her heart in her gold-brocaded slippers. With her
pretty colour, trembling mouth, downcast eyes, she
seemed a picture of innocence, but the epithets that passed
in her mind concerning the Young,Turks were not those
that would occur to a young woman in the West.

“ Stop a moment,” said the Sultan, pinching her ear.
“ Do you know what a Constitution is, little girl ? ”

She did know, for there had been whispers of it even
here in the harem, but wisely she shook her head,

“ A Constitution,” said the Sultan, “ means that I

GOLDEN HORN

14

am to declare that in this country the donkey and the
donkey-driver are equal. To please that murderer Midhat
Pasha, I promulgated a Constitution when I came to
the throne thirty-three years ago. And the ungrateful
deputies, as soon as they were elected, wanted to cut down
my. Civil List. My Gvil List, although I am the most
economical ruler that Turkey has ever had 1 That was the
only result of the Constitution ; that and the murder of
my uncle, the late Sultan Abdul Aziz. You know the
story? It happened long before you were born, but
history repeats itself.”

Mest6 Alem watched her master, wide-eyed now.

“ There was a Conference of Ambassadors in 1875,”
mused the Sultan, more to himself than to her, “ planning
reforms for us, even as to-day the Chancelleries of Europe
are discussing how to cure the Sick Man of Europe. But
the doctors are not really interested in a cure : they are
only keeping the patient alive until they can decide
amongst themselves how to divide up his property. It
has always been the same. Democracy is like a drug with
which addicts try to pervert others. They say it is the gate
to bliss. They want me to take a small dose to begin with,
enough to enable me to see visions of a better world j but
I know those visions and the anarchy that is their end.”

“ But I was telling you,” he continued, “ how the re-
forms of 1875 were forced on me. The leader of the Young
Turks of those days was Midhat Pasha. Finding that my
unde, Sultan Abdul Aziz, was opposed to his plans, he
drove him from the throne saying that he was insane.
My unde was distracted with grief at the manoeuvres
of the reformers, but he was sane enough, and remained
careful of his personal appearance to the end. On the day
of his death — only five days after his deposition— he

IN YILDIZ KIOSK

15

had borrowed a pair of pointed Persian scissors from the
Qjieen Mother in order to trim his beard. That was the
opportunity for the conspirators. Three men, who had
been watching at the keyhole of his room, broke in and
seized His Majesty, One of them held him by the shoulders
and another by the legs, while the third drove a penknife
into the i ns ide bend of each of his elbows in turn, just
where the big artery comes close to the skin. In a few
minutes His Majesty had bled to death. The Persian
scissors were left beside him, as if he had used them on
himself. But no one has ever been able to explain how he
could have cut the artery of his right arm if he had already
severed that of his left,

“ I was suspicious from the first of the theory of suicide,
but I waited two years before I had evidence on which
to accuse the conspirators. Then one day, when I was
enquiring into the salaries paid at the Palace, I dis-
covered that I was supporting a wrestler and a gardener
who had no duties of any kind. Gradually the whole story
came out : these men were the hired assassins of the re-
formers, Midhat Pasha was condemned to death, but I
pardoned him, and exiled him to Taif, where he died of
grief for his many sins,”

Mest6 Alem had heard the tale told differently. The
current version was that Midhat Pasha had been arrested
on a trumped-up charge and condemned to death in
order that the Sultan should rid himself of a troublesome
Parliamentarian, Rumour added that he had been stran-
gled, and that his head had been sent to the Sultan in a
box labelled “Japanese ivories. With care,” Moreover,
she believed, as did everyone in Turkey, that the present
Sultan’s path to power had been through black magic.

Abdul Hamid’s grandmother had been a sorceress.

l6 GOLDEN HORN

When he had been Heir Apparent, she and he had con-
trived a wax doll to represent the reigning monarch, and
stuck it full of pins ; this effigy they had sent to a magician
in Stambul who had flagellated it with rose-brambles and
cursed it while seated on the Holy Koran, so that the
progress of the then Sultan’s illness might be accelerated.

But Mest^ Alem neither knew nor cared whether these
things were true. Her place was to listen, since love-
making seemed out of the question.

The Czar of Russia and the Bang of England, said the
Sultan, had met in the waters of a Northern sea in order
to discuss the future of Turkey. They had decided that
Macedonia was to be divided up between them, and that
the country should be Christianised.

“ They want Macedonia for themselves,” he said, “ and
they will set about stealing it in the usual way. First they
will institute an international police force to keep order
there. Then they will want their own customs officers to
raise taxes to pay for the police. Finally a British or a
Russian Governor will be required to supervise these
ofiicials and to make the country into another Egypt. All
this they will do in the name of Peace, Progress, and
Democracy. Up there in the fogs of the North they talk
fine big words in Parliaments and about Parliaments, but
they have no idea of the damage their half-baked idealisms
will do when transplanted here. Or arc they deliberately
trying to ruin Turkey with the poison of Western political
institutions ? I wouldn’t put it past them. All my life I
have watched the intrigues of the Great Powera. They
have tried to filch Bulgaria and Bosnia and Egypt and
Crete firom me. They have encouraged the Arabs to
mutiny in the Yemen, and the Druses in the Lebanon, and

IN yiLDIZ KIOSK

17

the Kurds and the Devil Worshippers in Mosul, and the
Greeks in Crete, and the Armenians in Erzeroum and
Van and Bitlis and Adana. The Armenians, the whining
bastards, are in league with the Jews of Salonika. If I
have any more trouble with them, the Marmora will be
red with the blood of every Armenian in Constantinople.
I told that to the Patriarch the other day, and he wept.”

Mestd Alem shivered. Her Lord was indeed a Slayer of
Infidels.

“ A foreigner has written,” continued the Sultan,
“ that I am ‘ a poisonous grey spider in the centre of a
web of intrigue,’ and that ‘ Stambul of the Moslem
warrior is fast hurrying to its inevitable doom.’ But the
giaours haven’t defeated me yet. Ever since Mahomed the
Conqueror (peace to my ancestor!) took the crown of
the Virgin in Aya Sophia in order to give its jewels to his
Qpeens, my line has guarded this city linking East and
West. I have upheld the traditions of my predecessors
and kept their territories intact. And I have been a father
to my people.”

Mestd Alem agreed in a devout and daughterly way,
but in her heart she wished that the Sultan would be less
paternal and more uxorious. Why did he go on talking
about those sons of bitches of infidels ?

The root of the matter went deep, far beyond Mestd
Alem’s imderstanding. Turkey’s decadence, the in-
trigues of Europe for the command of the Straits and
Constantinople and all the small personal happenings
here related may be ascribed without undue fantasy to
the domestic habits of past rulers of the House of Othman.
Cherchez la Jemme. If Turkish pashas had not followed the
example of their masters and kept large harems they
would not have been so much in need of money, and so

Bh

GOLDEN HORN

l8

venal : Turkey might have become a nation instead of a
hunting-ground for concessionaires. Against a strong
Ottoman Army and Navy Russia would not have hoped
to rule at the Golden Horn : Austria-Hungary would not
have been so jealous of Slav influence in the Balkans :
Turkey would probably have remained neutral in the
Great War . . . Then this book would not have been
written.

Abdul Hamid could hardly have been other than he
was. On the night that he had been conceived, his mother
— an Armenian dancing-girl — had insinuated herself into
the foot of Abdul Medjid’s bed, and crept upwards from
the Sultan’s feet, little by little, with the abject ceremonial
of the harem. In times past, a snore had greeted her, or a
hiccough, kick, or curse, but that night the Sultan had
been awake, and sober enough to make her into a Qpeen.

Hence Abdul Hamid. Until his birth, he had been in
peril from abortionists : babies were an expense in a
populous harem, and there were many jealous women.
Throughout childhood and youth he had been in constant
danger of assassination (one of his ancestors had made a
clean sweep of nineteen possible successors, some of them
still infants at the breast) and after he had come to the
throne he did not fail to remember that seventeen of the
thirty-four rulers of Turkey had died by impalement,
poison, strangling, and in other sudden and disagreeable
ways : he had passed his life haunted by the dread of
being the eighteenth victim.

Suddenly he stopped his musing prowl and stared at
Ms little confidante.

“ What do you know of these things ? ” he asked.
NotMng, my Lord,” said MesM Alem.

IN YILDIZ KIOSK IQ

“ Then I advise you not to bother your head about
them. You can go now. Peace be with you.”

Mest^ Alem uncrossed her legs quickly, rose, bowed
low, touched the carpet with her henna-tinted finger-tips,
and then her head.

Abdul Hamid clapped his hands. Two Ethiopians
immediately appeared, and taking her by the arms,
guided her backwards to the door.

Here she salaamed once again. The Sultan returned her
salute with an indulgent gesture, but his last words had
a double edge : “ I will tell the Twisted Beard Pasha,” he
said, “ that you have been a good little girl and can hold
your tongue.” (One of the duties of Twisted Beard, who
was Comptroller of the Household, was to sew up ob-
streperous odalisques in a sack, and drop them in the
Bosphorus.)

That was the last time Mest6 Alem was to see the
Sultan. Her hour had passed. She had been born beau-
tiful, and she had been educated to be loved, but it had
been all for nothing.

Allah had brought the cup of ambition to her lips only
to dash it away again. The Ethiopians handed her over
to two deaf-mutes, who took her back to her mistress, the
Princess.

» * 0 »

The Sultan greeted his coimcillors pleasantly enough,
and handed to each a cigarette, but it was obvious to
them that he was in one of his scolding moods.

“ Now, Effmdimiz” he said, “ I want the Grand Vizier
to tell us plainly what he wants done in Macedonia :
let him give us his conclusions first and his reasons later.”

Feiid Pasha had a clear, quick brain, and decided to
put his cards on the table.

20

GOLDEN HORN

“ Sire,” he answered, “ an immediate grant of the
Constitution is the only means of saving the country.”

The Sultan frowned.

“ I have saved the country before,” he said, “ but not
with a Constitution. Do you think those half-fledged
Umbashis^ in Salonika know better than I what is good for
the Empire ? ”

“ Your Majesty, we have just heard that the Great
Powers are circulating cipher telegrams between them-
selves concerning the joint action they propose to take
with regard to Macedonia. We have done all we could to
cajole the Ambassadors and to sow dissension amongst
them ; but the Russians stand firm, and so do the French
and English. Our friends the Germans cannot act against
the Concert. We lose Macedonia to the Great Powers
unless we introduce reforms of our own. And if wc do
introduce reforms of our own, we must do it with the
help of the Young Turks.”

“ That is where I disagree with you,” said the Sultan.
“ I can — and have — and shall again introduce reforms
at the right time. But to do so now would be to open the
flood-gates of anarchy.”

“ We cannot turn back the tide. Your Majesty,” said
the Grand Vizier. “ ‘ The hand you cannot cut, kiss, and
press to your forehead.’ We must bow to the will of Allah.
The Russians and Persians have been given the vote, and
the blacks in the Philippines. Even the women in Eng-
land are fighting with hat-pins for it. Allah has sent into
the world this taste for Parliaments. At first, at the begin-
ning of Your Sacred Majesty’s auspicious reign, it seemed
as if railways and telegraphs would bind this wide
Empire more closely together. But it was not so written

Majors,

IN YILDIZ KIOSK

21

in the book of fate. Communications have corrupted
your sublime rule instead of strengthening it. Four-
fifths of the Valis^ have been changed in the last two years.
Provincial administration is in a state of anarchy. Per-
haps we have tried to concentrate too much power in the
hands of the Palace. In all our towns there exist centres of
sedition which are continually being fed by new exiles,
so that to-day there are more disaffected people in the
provinces than the remnant of those faithful to Your
Majesty. What has happened in Salonika will happen
all over the country.”

“ I wish I had sent every Young Turk to the bottom of
hell ! ” said the Sultan.

“ Indeed, Your Majesty has been too merciful,” agreed
Ferid (words buttered no parsnips), “ but we must face
the facts as they are to-day. The troops in Macedonia
have revolted. We cannot quell the mutiny by force, for
the Fetva Emin6® is against us. Only a fortnight ago we
promoted two thousand loyal officers and retired an
equal number of suspects. But that has not frightened
the old officers or satisfied the new. These Young Turks
want a Constitution, by fair means if they can get it, by
foul if not. Practically the whole of the Third Army
Corps in Macedonia has joined them. An officer or soldier
receives a message, sealed, but never signed, telling him
that if he wants better pay and quicker promotion, he
must go to a certain house at a certain time. If he goes,
he meets three masked men there, who ask him to swear
fidelity to the Committee upon the Holy Koran. All
orders come to him from these three men. The real leaders
are unknown except at the centre of the conspiracy. One
of them is said to be a certain Taalat Effendi, a Jewish

^ Provincial Governors. ^ The Lord Chief Justice of the Sacred Law.

22

GOLDEN HORN

telegraphist. Amongst the young officers implicated in the
movement I have been given the names of Enver, Djemal,
Niazi, and Moustafa Kemal. Whoever the chiefs are, they
have marked their rise with a trail of blood.”

“ We should meet force with force,” said Izzet Pasha,
the Second Secretary, thinking to gain the Sultan’s
favour by advocating a strong hand : “ Your Sublime
Majesty’s grandfather exterminated the Janissaries with-
out much difficulty : it was merely a matter of choosing
the right time and place. When the populace could toler-
ate them no longer the whole ten thousand of them were
hunted through the streets and shot or drowned ; and the
same thing could be done with the Young Turks, who
are fewer in number.”

“ It is not only Young Turks who are against us,” said
theSultan,”butthe Christians and Jews, and behind them
the whole Concert of Europe. You are a fool, Izzet,”
he added irritably, “ as I have often told you before.”

“ Sire, my only desire is to serve Your Majesty.”

“ Your only desire,” said the Sultan, “ is to make
money. You have become a millionaire through the
bribery of Europe, and now Europe has the insolence to
tell me that my country is corrupt. I know quite well that
you take a commission of from ten to twenty per cent, on
every Government contract that passes through your
hands. But there will be no more contracts for you if the
Young Turks come to Constantinople. You will have to
escape in order to live to enjoy the five million dollars
you have invested in the United States.”

Izzet Pasha bowed with a humility that was half mock.
He was a subtle courtier when it suited his purpose, but
now, with the Empire crashing about their cars, he saw
no purpose in not being ftank.

IN YILDIZ KIOSK

23

“ Your Majesty also has some investments abroad ”

he began.

“ Haidi” snapped the Sultan, pointing to the door.
“ Go to the telegraph oflSce and bring back the latest
despatches from Macedonia. The Inspector General was
to report at this time.”

“ The situation is confusing,” said old Abdul Houda,
the Court Astrologer, after Izzet had gone. “ Gan the
Grand Vizier tell us exactly what has happened in
Salonika during these last weeks ? ”

He pretended to know only what the Sultan allowed
him to hear, but his real object in seeking a recapitula-
tion of events was to convince the Sultan that he must take
the Grand Vizier’s advice.

“ The crisis,” said Feiid Pasha, “ was reached on the
third of July, when Niazi Bey took to the mountains
of Resna with some soldiers and several hundred
bashibazouks.^ Then Enver Bey deserted from Resna with
a hundred and fifty men, and installed himself on the
heights of Ochrida. We ordered two battalions from
Monastir to go in pursuit of them, but they refused to
march. Enver is a very able officer, by all accounts, and
I am afraid that we shall hear more of him. Every day
we have received news that recruits are flocking to the
camps of these two young men. We sent Shemshi Pasha
against them. What happened ? Shemshi weis shot com-
ing out of the telegraph office at Resna, just after he
had sent Your Sublime Majesty a telegram to say that he
was starting to suppress the rebellion. The murderer has
not been found, although Shemshi was killed in broad
daylight in front of a crowd. To cap all, when the great
Osman Pasha arrived at Monastir, he was kidnapped,

1 Brigands.

24 GOLDEN HORN

and we don’t know exactly where he is at this moment.
What we do know is that there have been a dozen murders
of our agents within a week, and that mutinies have
broken out in practically every garrison in Macedonia
and Albania.”

Ferid Pasha paused to strike a match, then added
gloomily : “ There is no knowingwhat may happen next ! ”

“ You fear for your head, my Pasha ? ” sneered Abdul
Hamid.

“ No one is safe. Your Majesty. I cannot be answerable
for the consequences unless Your Majesty at once grants
Your subjects the privileges which You gave them, in
Your wisdom, thirty years ago.”

“ Perhaps someone else will be answerable for the con-
sequences,” said the Sultan. Were the Germans support-
ing the Young Turks, he wondered ? Could he play the
English against the Germans ? It was a forlorn chance, —
but if he could gain time something might happen in his
favour : it often did.

Abdul Hamid called on the First Secretary to give his
advice. Tahsin Pasha, however, had none to offer. He
was a superlative bureaucrat, who rarely left the Palace
and worked so hard while at his desk that he used to
declare that he only knew when it was summer by the
fact that his wives gave him strawberries. He was droning
on when Izzet Pasha re-entered.

“Your Majesty, three telegrams have arrived which
demand immediate attention,” he said. “The first is
firom Uskub and states that eight thousand Albanians
have gone there by special train, and have sworn on the
Bible and Koran to proclaim and maintain the Constitu-
tion. The second is to threaten us with reprisals : it is
fixim the Committee in Salonika, who announce that all

IN YILDIZ KIOSK 25

our General Officers in Macedonia will be murdered
unless we release the members of the Committee whom
we have imprisoned in Constantinople. The third is from
our Inspector General, saying that he is a prisoner in the
hands of the Young Turks, and is being held as a hostage.
Unless your Majesty declares the Constitution, he will be
condemned to death, and six troop trains and a warship
will leave Salonika immediately for Constantinople. We
are lost.”

Silence.

All present were nervous. Izzet believed that the Sultan
might shoot down the Minister who advised a Constitu-
tion ; Tahsin that he would abdicate j Riza Pasha, the
Commander-in-Chief, that he would raise the Green
Standard of the Prophet and betake himself to Asia.
Ferid felt sure that there would be a change of Grand
Viziers, as indeed there was. But no one could tell what
was really in Abdul Hamid’s mind.

“ Send a message to Salonika to say that a full Coimcil
will meet to-morrow to consider the grant of a Con-
stitution,” said the Sultan. “ Release all the Committee
oflScers in Constantinople, with my blessing, curse them !
Now go, all of you. You are a helpless crew. Why didn’t
you send troops against the Albanians, Commander-in-
Chief? And you. Grand Vizier, you cannot even prevent
the walls of your own Sublime Porte from being placarded
with the ridiculous manifestoes of the Committee ! I’m
disgusted with you both. You can only watch events. If
watching were enough, dogs would be butchers.^ You
haven’t the guts to be butchers.”

He rose and lit his hundredth cigarette.

1 An allusion to the street dogs of Constantinople, who used to sit in
rows waiting for scraps of raeat

26

GOLDEN HORN

Next morning, the Sultan dismissed Ferid Pasha, and
put Said Pasha in his place, thinking that by appointing a
Minister who was friendly to the British he might stave
oflF the reforms. But the bleak wind of facts, from every
corner of the Empire, chilled his hopes of compromise or
procrastination. Telegrams poured into the Palace an-
nouncing brigandage, murder, conspiracy, refusal of re-
cruits, refusal of taxes. It was hard for him to understand
how a handful of idealists could accomplish in a few weeks
what the Great Powers, severally and collectively, had
failed to achieve in thirty-two years. Yet so it was. The
idealists had won. He must be an idealist too.

“ Neyapmalin ? What shall we do ? ” asked the Sultan
at the last Council under the old regime.

He seemed at his wits’ end.

“ You know my opinion. Your Majesty,” said the new
Grand Vizier.

“ So you are all of you in favour of granting the
Reforms ? ” said the Sultan.

No reply was forthcoming, but Said Pasha quoted a
Turkish proverb that silence gives consent.

The smoke from the cigarette in Abdul Hamid’s thin
hand curled steadily upward.

“ You arc agreed ? ” he said at last.

Then, since no one replied, he added in the deep, slow
voice that had so often impressed its hearers ; “ I am my-
self heartily in favour of a Constitution. Let it be granted
immediately ! ”

Id * >)• *

Before dawn on that momentous a4th of July, while
the telegraph office in the Palace was disseminating the

IN YILDIZ KIOSK

27

news that brought Turkey with a jump from the middle
ages to the modern world, an old man with a hooked nose
and a huge red fez on the back of his head sat on the roof
of the Little Mabeyn, restless, sleepless, smoking. Some-
times he put his glittering, suspicious eyes to a powerful pair
of field glasses fixed on a tripod before him and scanned
now the Bosphorus for imaginary enemies, now the house
of the Heir Presumptive, whom he suspected of Liberal
tendencies. But the Bosphorus reflected only the glory of
moonlight and nascent day, while Mehmed Reschad
Effendi and his household slept guiltless of treasons and
conspiracies.

What would be the effect of a Constitution on his Em-
pire ? In the cockpit of Macedonia, would Albanians and
Greeks and Jews and Bulgars and Roumanians and
Kutzo-Vlacks lie down together? Would the Arabs
eschew insurrection, and the Kurds stop massacring
Armenians? Would Europe ever tolerate a reformed
Turkey, if reform were possible ?

Abdul Hamid doubted it. On one excuse or another
the double-headed Eagle intended to fly down the Bos-
phorus with the Cross in its beaks. Germany’s drang nach
Osten was plain. France was eager for control of schools,
mines, banks. Italy had just succeeded in getting him to
build a useless cruiser at Ansaldo’s yard in Genoa. Eng-
land weaved platitudes from Whitehall, and gave un-
palatable advice copiously, but she would not lift a finger
to help, though she had taken Cyprus on the understand-
ing that Turkey was to be saved from any further loss of
Asiatic territory, Greece had named her next King Con-
stantine, and her national hope was that he would live
to revive the glories of Byzantium by attending Mass in
AyaSophial. Albania would soon want her independence.

GOLDEN HORN

28

Crete was clamouring for annexation to Greece. Ferdin-
and, the Fox of the Balkans, waited but the hour to be
crowned King of Bulgaria. Surrounded by enemies, within
and without, what was Abdul Hamid to do ?

The idealists of Paris and Salonika, with Comte in one
hand and a pistol in the other, imagined him to be a
tyrant. They little knew how advanced his views were !

Going back to his study, he found a commonplace-book
in which he had written his thoughts for the future :

“ I believe we shall have to adopt monogamy. It would
be good for the nation.”

And : “ It is time we had the Gregorian Calendar.”

And : “ It is not easy to learn our writing. Perhaps we
ought to make the task easier by adopting the Latin alpha-
bet. Undoubtedly there would be difficulties with certain
sounds in our language, but they could be surmounted.
No sensible man can doubt it.”

And much else that seemed to him to be progressive,
sensible, shrewd. Historians, he told himself, would not
call him a tyrant, but a realist who refused to allow the
country to be hustled into reforms beyond the length of
its cable-tow.

He did not often pray, but he prayed then, and not
for himself, but for the Turkey he had served so long in
his oblique and bitter fashion.

)i< « )ii 1(1

Not far away, Mest^ Alem sat at a window which also
overlooked the Bosphorus ; and cried because there was a
scented wind from the gardens behind her, and a silver
road before her, leading nowhere.

For five years (that is, since attaining puberty) she
had hoped that the time might come when she would

IN YILDIZ KIOSK

29

be the elect of the Sultan. Her chances of being chosen
had been slight, for Abdul Hamid paid little attention to
his three hundred oflScial wives, and Mest^ was not one
of them, but only a dancing girl to a Princess. Still, she
was lovely to look at, and an artist in all that pertained
to the senses : if diligence had been a passport to success
she would have been a Qpeen.

For five years she had studied the technique of an
ancient cult that was taught at this day at Yildiz Kiosk
even as it had been in China when Marco Polo wrote of
the domestic arrangements of the Manchu Emperors,
and in India when Vatsyayana compiled his erotic lore.
During this novitiate, Mestd Alem had learned to wear
the blue muslins that caught her master’s fancy, to emu-
late the springy grace of a she-camel of the Nejd, to pluck
her eyebrows like Zuleikha and to dress her hair like
Roxalana. She knew the artifices that experience can give
to passion, and the seductions that have been added to
the senses since Adam kissed Eve : the stillnesses that
prolong ecstasies, the movements that accompany rap-
tures, the rhythms and restraints of love, the solace as
well as the delirium that may be conveyed by hands,
and lips, and eyes. In theory, and not entirely in theory,
for she was young and some of her instructresses were
ardent, she was an adept in all the arts of pleasing. But
now she had no one to please except herself.

That morning, when His Highness Djevher Agha had
arrived to announce to her that she was the object of the
Sultan’s favour, she had become a great lady in the
twinkKng of the subtle eyes that watched and envied her.
Her mistress herself had taken her to the bath, had super-
vised her shampooing and hairdressing, and had chosen,
an exquisite attar for her anointing. Dreaming of her

30 GOLDEN HORN

future, Mestc had driven to the Little Mabeyn in a closed
brougham, with two deaf-mute footmen^ standing behind
her and four great slaves on horseback as her escort. In
the Palace glory might be awaiting her, for the woman
who bore a child to the Sultan became a Gadine.

In the presence of His Sublime Majesty, she had
trembled so that she could hardly stand, but not with the
feelings that a girl of eighteen might entertain for a lover
three times her age. The hunched little man, whose
slippers she had touched in obeisance, was King of all the
Kings of the Earth, Commander of True Believers, the star
of her faith and hope. For him her body had been pre-
pared and her soul exalted beyond that of other women.

He had worn tight trousers, a dark blue waistcoat
edged with fur — ^for even in this weather he was cliilly —
and a plum-coloured cape had been thrown round his
stooping shoulders. His voice had been vibrant with enthu-
siasm as he had talked of his favourite operetta. La Fille
de Madame Angot, and then of Mozart.

But he had only played to her for half-an-hour when
that obscene jelly fish, the Grand Eunuch, had floated
in upon a flood-tide of intrigue.

Mest^ Alem was alone now, and forgotten. She was only
a little girl who had dreamed greatly and done nothing.

She remembered that when she had first come to
Constantinople from her native Circassia as a child of
seven, Yildiz Kiosk had been a paradisal nursery and Zoo

^ These creatures underwent in childhood not only the usual operation
performed on eunuchs but also had their tongues slit and their ear-dniim
pierced. It was they who applied the thumbscrew, the rope and rack,
the cageful of starving rats that nibbled a victim^s navel, the blind wonm
inserted in the ear and other orifices, death by by sleeplessness, by
eyestrain, by dripping water and by the thousand cuts* But mey saw also
stranger though less physical torments than these.

IN YILDIZ KIOSK

31

combined. There had been lovely toys there for her, and
kind black nurses, and strange entrancing foods ; there had
been zebras and bears to feed, and champing horses, and
gorgeous parakeets to admire. She had been happy then.

One day, she had been driven down from the Palace to
see the linked cities of Pera, Stambul, Scutari. She had
passed the glittering shops of the European quarter in the
Grand’ Rue de Pera, had tripped down the steep steps of
the Jews’ quarter holding tightly to the hand of her
African nurse, crossed the long plank bridge into Stambul
of the great mosques, wandered through the bright and
dark bazaars, stood outside the shabby Sublime Porte
where the affairs of State were conducted (“ but every-
thing of importance is done at the Palace ” her nurse had
told her) gaped through the railings of the Ministry of
War where a corpse hung on a gibbet, and visited a pastry-
cook’s where she had been regaled on etmek-kadaif and
imam-bayildi^- And once they had been rowed in a caique
up the Golden Horn to the Sweet Waters of Europe,
where Judas trees flamed against the cypresses (for it was
May) and had prayed at the Mosque of Eyoub, where the
Sultans are enthroned. Here they had foxmd a black-
avised witch who had told their fortunes. Then she and
her chaperon had been rowed back, under the two
bridges, and out amongst the ships at anchor in the
Marmora. Looking northwards, up the glinting Bosphorus,
she had beheld Galata and Pera in front of her, with
Yildiz Kiosk hidden amongst the heights beyond. Behind
her were the domes and minarets of Stambul, with the
mosque of Suleiman the Magnificent overtopping all.
To her right Scutari lay clustered on the shores of Asia.

^ Bread and Velvet and ** The Priest Fainted.” The former is bread
and Devonshire cream, the latter a pastry so delicious that it is said to have
made an imam swoon.

32 GOLDEN HORN

It was a great and glorious world, and at its midmost
she might have been a Queen. But now she knew that
Yildiz held nothing for her but despair, and the gulf
between her past hopes and her present frustration made
her bite the pillow of the divan and clutch at it with
capricious fingers, whose nails gleamed red.

She wanted to drink of the wines of love, whose vintages
her lips had touched. She wanted everything that the
harem denied her : ambition fulfilled with a companion at
her side, authority in her own home, motherhood. She
wanted to strike and slay all in the Palace, hacking her
way out of this forcing-house of the senses, where there
was every incitement but no release to passion. How
hideous was man’s lust of possession ! In her world, as in
the great world outside, a storm was rising. The Young
Turks were right. She was one with the wind that swept
from Salonika to Basra, from Smyrna to Van,

Here in Yildiz Kiosk the women, the eunuchs, the
soldiers, the innumerable beasts, even the lakes and
streams were perverted from their natural purpose, and
confined between walls built by an immense, insane fear,
an idiotic, artificial civilisation. Animate and inanimate
alike were twisted and caged to no purpose, for the Sultan
round whom this world revolved was too tired and anxious
to enjoy it.

Was God like that too ? If not, why had He given her
a body of beauty and desire, and then condemned her to
live without love, or with only its counterfeit of sterile
caresses ?

“ O God,” she prayed, “ Who seest into men’s hearts,
and women’s also, and rankest all this world of glory and
greatness, give the Young Turb courage to raze Yildiz
Kiosk to the ground i Thou knowest the agony of Thy

IN YILDIZ KIOSK 33

slaves whose lives must come to flower in barrenness, and
the woes of the eunuchs, who are Thy children too.
Most merciful and Most High, let me know love before
I die, and let me see daggers and dynamite in this den of
iniquity ! ”

What became of her, we do not know. She may have
lived long enough to see her wish fulfilled. She may have
found a friend. She may have paid for some delinquency
at the hands of the deaf-mutes, or been taken for a row on
the Bosphorus by Twisted Beard Pasha.^

But Allah hears the petitions of the humble as clearly
as He does the orisons of the mighty.

^ The pseudonymous author of Abdul Hamid Intime states that Mcst6
Alem committed suicide.

CHAPTER II

THE END OF THE RED SULTAN

The news of freedom seemed too good to be true :
Gonstaniinopolitans blinked their eyes at the iradt
published in the morning newspapers and at first did not
quite understand it.

Yet in the forenoon, groups could be seen in the caf6s
of Pera and the coffee-houses of Stambul discussing old
Father Hamid’s edict, and praising him.

Moslems and Christians embraced. There was neither
Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, bond
nor free. Lazzes who had lately cut the throats of Armen-
ians, kissed them instead. Racial enmity had been the
daily bread of Turkey, but now the people said : “ Mad,
ine mazi,al hamd-ul-illah ” — “Thatwhich has passedispast,
thank God ! ” Everywhere the talk was of the miraculous
birth of Liberty^ through the marriage of ballot-box and
scimitar, and how the child of democracy was to be
nourished ever afterwards on the milk of human kindness.

The flags of Europe, side by side with the Star and
Crescent, began to appear at windows. Troops going up
through Pera on their way to the Palace for the cere-
monial parade of the Friday Prayer were cheered by
Greek and Armenian shopkeepers.

Prohibited words, such as palace, arms, bloodshed,
tyranny, hero, persecution, progress, Armenia, elections,
the resurrection of the dead, dynamo (confused by the
Censor widi dynamite) and star (because the Magi were
led by a star to worship the Messiah, who was obviously

THE END OF THE RED SULTAN 35

a reformer) were heard again in the streets and presently
also appeared in the newspapers, which published
everything fit to print — and more.

On Simday, July the 26th, 1908 the Palace was thrown
open to sixty thousand people who had assembled to do
honour to the Padishah. Shortly before noon, a stooping,
haggard figure appeared upon a balcony. It was Abdul
Hamid ; he asked the crowd what it wanted of him.

“ We want to see Your Majesty in good health ! ” was
the answer. “ For thirty-two years Your Presence has
been denied us by traitors. We only want to see Your
Majesty ! Thank God You have shown Yourself to us !
Padishahmiz chok yasha !

And the Sultan, almost inaudible, but apparently
touched, replied : “ Since I girded on the sword of
Othman, I have consecrated all my efforts to the good of
my country. My great desire has been the happiness of
my people, whom I consider as my own children. God is
my witness ! ”

“ Long live the Sultan ! ” shouted his enraptured
subjects.

“ It is true,” continued Abdul Hamid, “ that traitors
have separated me from you. But that is over : those days
are past. At the beginning of my reign, I granted a Con-
stitution to my coimtry ; but I had to withdraw it, for
the people were not ready for it. Now I proclaim it
definitely, and I am determined that it shall be ceurried
into effect. Here in the presence of the Sheikh-ul-Islam
I swear ” (and he swore twice) “ that the preservation of
the Constitution shall be my chief concern. God bless
you all, my children, and may He make you happy ! ”

After further tumultuous applause, the audience
^ Long live the Padishah !

gg GOLDEN HORN

dispersed, but it did not return to its usual avocations
until many days had passed.

All Constantinople gave itself a vireek’s holiday. At
the docks, porters struck work. At the State Tobacco
Company the counters were deserted. Schools closed their
doors. Medical students paraded with banners proclaim-
ing that Turkey was to be saved by Science. Young priests
gave up the study of theology for the exciting new creed ;
and military cadets, forgetting strategy, thought only of
the magical Committee in whose ranks they hoped to
build a new heaven and a new earth. Children spent
their days in listening to political speeches. When the
new British Ambassador, Sir Gerard Lowther arrived,
on July the 31st, his horses were taken out of his carriage
and he was pulled in triumph up the steep street of Galata
to the British Embassy. Newspapers reminded their
readers that our fleet had saved the capital from the
Russians, and that Westminster was the Mother of
Parliaments. Not for half a centmy had the English been
so popular.

“ The city was glowing like a rose, and tense with
excitement,” Aubrey Herbert^ wrote of those days :
“ Where before there had been silence, crowds wandered
singing. Murder ceased ; there was no thieving ; bak-
shish was refused ; the millennium reigned. Pacifists,
idealists, and some others, had flocked from all over
Europe to see the vulture turn into the dove of peace.
Constantinople was like a continuous garden-party,
exhilarated, yet quivering with agitation.”

1 Ben Keadim, p. 257 et seq. The late Aubrey Herbert was at that time an
unpaid attach6 at the British Embassy at Constantinople. He had travelled
much and made many human contacts. His rare qualities of heart and head
made him welcome everywhere, amongst all classes ; and his knowledge of
the East went deep.

THE END OF THE RED SULTAN 37

“ The scene on the bridge (at Galata) caught me at
once,” writes another observer.^ “ There was a sea of
men and women all cockaded in red and white, flowing
like a vast human tide from one side to the other. The
tradition of centuries seemed to have lost its efiect. Men
and women in a common wave of enthusiasm moved on,
radiating something extraordinary, laughing, weeping
in such intense emotion that human deficiency and
ugliness were for the time completely obliterated. Before
each official building there was an enormous crowd
calling to the Minister to come out and take the oath of
allegiance to the new regime.

“ As I drove along the Sublime Porte, the butchers
of Stambul were leaving its austere portals in their
white chemises. They also had come to get assurance from
the highest that their new joy was to be safeguarded,
and that they, the butchers, also were going to share in
the great task.

“ In three days the whole Empire had caught the fever
of ecstasy. No one seemed clear about its meaning. The
news of the change had come from Ssilonika through
several young officers whose names were shouted as its
symbol.

“ The motley rabble, the lowest pariahs, were going
about in a sublime emotion, with tears rimning down
their unwashed faces, the shopkeepers joining the
procession without any concern for their goods.”

Throughout the Near East the age of Liberty was
ushered in with mass-rejoicings. In Salonika Enver Bey
drove in triumph to the Place de la Libertd escorted by a
regiment of artillery and two hundred decorated carriages.
After the band had played the Marseillaise {“Liberty,

1 Memoirs of HduU Edib, p» 258 et seq*

g8 GOLDEN HORN

LiberU, che'rie , . . Allans, enfants de la Turquie, le jour du
dipart est arrivi!^’) he mounted a rostrum and spoke
with such emotion that tears trickled into his waxed
moustache :

“ During these days not only thousands and thousands
of Turkish patriots have come to us,” he said, “ but the
approval and congratulations of the whole civilised world.

“ The tyranny of the former Government had reached
its limit. All classes suffered : our children were separated
from us ; and frequently brother intrigued against
brother. Things had come to such a pass that the European
Powers, taking pity on us, came to our aid, and sent their
representatives into Macedonia in order to oversee the
actions of the Turkish government. We are grateful to
Europe for this evidence of its interest in our welfare,
and we are convinced of its humanitarian sentiments and
of its desire to substitute good for evil.

“ But to-day the tyrant has disappeared. We are no
longer Bulgarians, Greeks, Serbs, Roumanians, Jews,
Moslems : under the same blue sky we are all equal : we
all glory in the name of Ottomans.

“ We are certain that Europe, to whom we are so
grateful, will appreciate the situation. What the Great
Powers wished done, we shall now do, oxxrselves alone !
Vioe V Europe ! Vivent les Puissances ! ! Vive la Nation
Ottomane ! ! ! ”

In Athens — ^for the first time in history — a crowd of
ten thousand people cheered the Turkish Ambassador,
the Sultan, the Constitution, and the Ottoman Army.
In Alexandria, the Armenian Archbishop held a Mass for
Ottoman patriots who had fallen on the road of freedom,
and a Young Turk kbsed the archiepiscopal hand. Simul-
taneously, in Constaiitinople, Turkish officers attended a

THE END OF THE RED SULTAN 39

Requiem Mass for Armenian victims of the massacres of
1897. In Cairo, before a gathering of two thousand exiles,
a speaker saluted the “ dawn of peace and harmony
which has arisen before our dazzled eyes,” and loftily
continued : “ The Almighty, in His wisdom, has chosen
the Ottoman Empire as a place where He intends to make
a terrestrial paradise ; and I believe that we, without
exception of race, and inspired by sentiments of Union
and Labom, can confirm before the eyes of the world the
choice made by God. Let us purify the past by our
common and fecund labours, so that our Empire may
take its glorious place in history. Down with the vile
profiteers ! Down with the parasitic companies that have
impoverished the Treasury ! Down with the infamous
speculators who have drained, drop by drop, the life-
blood of our fathers, and whitened their hair before their
time. All honour to Union and Labour ! During the last
fortnight, the people have reconquered their liberty, and
— a thing unique in history — they have accomplished it
not with blood and weapons, but with songs, flags, flowers,

“ We have nothing to envy the great free nations. The
Americans have their Fourth of July, the French their
Fourteenth of July, and we Ottomans our Twenty-fourth
of July, which will be our national festival.”

Amidst a mounting delirium of enthusiasm, the Com-
mittee of Union and Progress kept its head, and saw to it
that the heads of its enemies were abased. Songs, flags
and flowers were all very well for the people. Behind
the scenes there were revolvers in invisible hands.

As many as possible of the “ Palace gang ” were
arrested. Izzet Pasha slipped through the fingers of the
Conunittce, but Abdul Houda, the First Secretary, the

GOLDEN HORN

40

Commander-in-Chief, and about a dozen others of the
Sultan’s camarilla were locked up in the Ministry of
War Prison, and stripped of all their possessions except
a miriTmiiTn of clothing. A journalist who visited them
there found them in a sad plight, and terrified by the
squalor of their surroundings, for many of them had lived
aU their lives at Yildiz Kiosk. (The two bleak rooms in
which they were confined became very well known at a
later day to British prisoners : I lived in one of them
myself, and found it infested by one of the liveliest tribes
of bugs in the Nearer Middle East.) The late Commander-
in-Chief had just been made to disgorge 100,000 in
cash, and the First Secretary was so sorry for himself that
he refused to leave his bed, or even lift his head.

Yet the Ministry of War was a safer refuge for the
fnends of Abdul Hamid than any that they could have
found for themselves in the country they had so long
despoiled.

The fate of Fehim Pasha, for instance (a foster-brother
of the Sultan, whose conduct had horrified even the
tolerant Periotes) was symptomatic of the feeling towards
spies. When driving near Broussa, he had been set upon
by a mob, and had feigned death, but a woman had
stamped on the more delicate parts of his person, so that
he had been unable to resist giving signs of life ; where-
upon the crowd hammered his head to a pulp and tore
his body to bits. In his house they found twenty-five gold
watches and five hundred bottles of champagne, obtained
on credit, several thousands of pounds’ worth of jewels and
carpets, all stolen, and a disconsolate virgin whose dowry
he had acquired under pretence of marriage — but these
were trifles amidst his more far-reaching enterprises.

Izzet Pasha was too clever to be caught. He chartered

THE END OF THE RED SULTAN 4I

a ship (from an Englishman) and through his agents
spread a rumour that he was being sent by sea with a
letter to the Kaiser. At dusk he made his way to his
seaside villa on the Marmora, accompanied by his two
Jewish mistresses, and passed the evening in affectionate
farewells. In the morning he gave orders that all the
produce of his garden should be plucked and transferred
to the steamer ; then he asked his women to return all
the jewels he had given them as presents (for they would
be safer with him, he said) and was rowed out to the
S.S. Marianne, whither his family had preceded him.

So secure did he feel under the Union Jack, and so
content, no doubt, at having fruit, flowers, family,
jewels and a whole skin, that he addressed a manifesto
to his ungrateful country while en route for Europe :

“ The Committee of Union and Progress thinks I
have fled from Constantinople. But the services I have
rendered to the Nation and Government remain to bear
witness in my favour.

“ I protest against the cowardly assertion that I am
a spy. I swear before God that I was against the system
of spies.” . . . And so on.

He was seen later in a fashionable restaurant in London,
where he aimounced that he was writing his memoirs ;
but he died at Nice, in 1920, and no full record of him has
appeared by his own or another hand. The historian
cannot but regret the loss of a document which — if
Izzet had told the truth — would have revealed much
that we shall now never know of the Sultan’s reign, and
of an accomplished and cynical personality.

GOLDEN HORN

42

But if the chief of the Sultan’s spies had escaped,
Abdul Hamid remained, and the Committee — ^who dared
not depose the Caliph of Islam, but were determined
that he should not be the real ruler in Turkey — made
themselves as impleasant to him as was politely possible.

The economies which they demanded must have been
a large leek for the Lord of Two Continents and Two
Oceans to swallow, but he took his medicine like a man.
All spies were (theoretically) abolished. He agreed to
surrender an aimual income of ,^400,000 to the State ;
and about a third of his private fortune of 2,000,000.
The salaries of various officials were reduced by forty per
cent. His private theatre in Yildiz Kiosk was closed and
the three hundred musicians dismissed. His horse-farms
were taken over by the State. His aides-de-camp were
reduced from two hundred and ninety to a mere thirty,
and his cooks were ordered to manage with five hundred-
weight of butter for the needs of the Palace instead of the
ton which they had been in the habit of using daily. Such
demands were irritating, to say the least of it, but Abdul
Hamid was personally abstemious. When, however, it was
suggested that his Palace Guards should be reduced from
five thousand to one thousand, he stood finn, declaring,
more in sorrow than in anger, that if any attempt were
made to disband them they .would mutiny. The soldiers
confirmed this, and refused to swear fealty to the Con-
stitution as the other troops had done, saying that they
had already given their oath to their Sovereign.

On this point the Young Turks decided to bide their
time . they thought that they could afford to be generous,
for the Arnauts were soft with easy living and unlikely to
become a menace. In such leniency, however, they were
mistaken. The counter-revolution of April 1909 was soon

THE END OF THE RED SULTAN 43

to prove that twelve dervishes may sleep under one
blanket, but not two Kings in one country.

For a time, however, all went fairly well. Strikes were
settled by an all-round increase in wages and reduction in
hours of work. A Frenchman was appointed as Financial
Adviser to the Sublime Porte, and three Englishmen to
the Customs, Debt, and Navy. There was much sweeping-
up and tidying-up throughout the Empire. Admiral
Gamble, who was in charge of the Navy, found veget-
able gardens growing on the decks of his warships (for
Abdul Hamid had considered that men-of-war in fighting
trim might turn their guns on his Palace) and jettisoned
tons of rubbish before he weighed the rusty anchors of
the fleet. Every public office was purged of hangers-on.
Elections were held. Turkey became (in theory) a modem
State.

In the square of San Sophia, during the last days of
1908, the soldiers of the Revolution and a great concourse
of citizens awaited the Sultan, who had consented, or
been compelled, to open the new Parliament in person.
The famous dogs had taken advantage of the sunny day
to go to sleep in the middle of the road and refused to
allow their comfort to be disturbed by the Macedonian
soldiers who tried to move them, but they were the only
supporters of the old regime who dared to show them-
selves thus openly.

The recent snow had cleared. Constantinople lay radi-
ant between her sparkling waters and wistful cypresses.
Her streets were lined with six-foot Albanians with_yato-
ghans in their belts, green-turbaned Zouaves, whose teeth
and eyeballs shone in their dusky faces, magnificent blue
Marines, and stocky Anatolian peasants, backbone of the
Empire.

GOLDEN HORN

44

Behind the soldiers, who stood like statues, with sunlight
glinting on gold lace and bare steel, had assembled a
pageant of the variegated races composing Turkey. Wasp-
waisted Circassians were there, and voluminously-robed
Arabs, and shock-headed clergy of the Orthodox rite,
astrakhan-clad pilgrims from Persia, oflScials from the
Provinces and beggars from Pera, shopkeepers and ad-
venturers, retired bimbashis and gilded cadets, Pashas and
pickpockets : from the plains of Konia and the wilds of
Kurdistan they jostled each other cheerfully. Amongst
the male spectators women passed in veils which they
were already thinking of discarding : all wore festal dress :
the day matched the people’s mood.

Down a hedge of steel came deputies from all comers of
the desert and sown lands of the Empire, very conscious
of their task of building a New Jerusalem out of European
bricks ; then came the religious orders of Islam ; the chiefs
of the foreign banks and the Ottoman Debt ; the Am-
bassadors ; the Grand Rabbi of the Jews ; and a pack of
Christian Pontiffi — the Bulgarian Exarch, the (Ecu-
menical, Armeniain-Catholic, Catholic, Chaldean, Syrian
and Greek-Melechite Patriarchs. All these wise old men
were greeted with deference.

Yet even the Muhammedan religious orders were an
uncertain factor in the Young Turk scheme. What was
going on under the marigold turban of the Sheikli-ul-
Islam or the high cylinders of felt which coiffed the der-
vishes ? No one knew what the dervishes thought, but it
was they who had led the Tiurks across this very ground,
in 1453, to pile the corpses of the Christians as high as the
withers of the Conqueror’s charger.

These mitred and turbaned Priests were in reality
more dangerous than Ambassadors, for they represented

THE END OE THE RED SULTAN 45

conflicting Deities instead of rival Powers. But the crowd
cheered them all impartially, for there was optimism in
the air that morning. In the good days coming, men would
be content to respect the religion of their fellow subjects,
and Europe would be ready to help Turkey to stand on
her own feet, with no thought of concessions. The agonies
of ages would vanish before this Parliament. Vive la Con-
stitution ! So great was the clamour that the doves swirling
between the minarets of Stambul flashed their white
wings there as silently as snowflakes.

But when the White Lancers of Yildiz thundered over
Galata Bridge, with the Sultan’s victoria behind them, a
hush came to the city. The cooing of the doves became
audible, and high above the crowd, with foot planted on
the summit of what had once been a Christian shrine to
the Holy Wisdom, a muezzin appeared, calling the people
to Prayer, to Progress, and to Unity.

Allahu Akbar I Ashadu an la ilaha illaHlah. Ashadu anna
Muhammad rasulullah. Hqxyu’ala 's-salah I Hajyvdala ’l-falah !
Allahu Akbar !

“ God is great ! I bear witness, there is no god but God.
I bear witness that Muhammed is the Apostle of God.
Come to prayer ! Come to salvation ! God is great ! ”

The rhythmic call, to which a fifth of the population
of the world listens, drifted down in resonant syllables
upon the waiting people, assuring them that Islam, though
sorely tried, was still militant and triumphant.

I^was the Caliph Sultan who came, the Shadow of God,
the Father of the Kings of the Earth (his nomad ancestors
who carried the Crescent to the walls of Vienna had been
content, like the Popes, to style themselves the Servant of
the Servants of God) wearing chain-mail under his loose
great-coat, with his beard fireshly dyed by a mixture of

GOLDEN HORN

46

coffee and henna, and his old cheeks rouged, on his way
to begin a new way of life for his people.

Surveying the assembly with his brilliant eyes (burning
with fever, perhaps, as well as anxiety, for he had a taint
of tuberculosis on both sides of his family) Abdul Hamid
bowed right and left, as he passed down the hedge of steel
that formed the core of this superb parade, to the standards
of-Plevna, to the waving spectators, to the cheering troops.
He was no longer the hated Ogre of Yildiz, but good,
kind, old Father Hamid, who had delivered his people
from the rule of spies and despots. His ancestors, riding
plumed and bediamonded to one of the great mosques,
had never been more enthusiastically acclaimed.

Twice a trumpet sounded, and twice, with a glitter of
swords and bayonets, the troops cried Padishamiz chok
yasha !

But how long would the Padishah live ? He was sallow
under his make-up, and there was death in his eyes. He
looked like a corpse, dressed up and painted, and taken
to its prayers for political purposes.

Within the Parliament House, the elect of the nation
awaited its Sovereign : a medley of races and religions as
amiably disposed to each other as a basketful of rattle-
snakes.

In the middle, by the wall, stood the seat and table
destined for Riza Pasha, the ex-schoolmaster and Parisian
exile who was to be chosen President. To the right were
three boxes, reserved for the Sultan and his staff. Facing
them were the diplomats. On the floor of the house sat
the representatives of the Omnipotent People : old Kiamil
Pasha, the staunch friend of England (had he not been
photographed in the company of King Edward ?) and

THE END OF THE RED SULTAN 47

Feisal of the Hedjaz, pale, nervous, large-eyed, beautiful
in his gold agal and green djibbah^ little dreaming that in
ten years Colonel Lawrence would make him a King ;
and next him Enver of the curled moustache, lounging in
a careless attitude, but with sword-hilt prominent.

Enver Bey modelled himself on Napoleon and Frederick
the Great, but unfortunately he could never pass a looking-
glass, and he had no brains. Close by was Taalat Bey,
gypsy-bom, thick-wristed, deep-chested, hairy, with a
strange light in his eyes : he was older than his fellow
revolutionaries, being thirty-eight, and a great deal
cleverer. The third member of the triumvirate was Djemal
Bey, who was rumoured to have begun life as a Pasha’s
darling page-boy, but was now a heavily-bearded little
man, with the white-toothed laugh of a hyena. Such was
the trio destined to rule Turkey in the days of wrath to
come.

But there was one youth in Constantinople whom no-
body, even the Young Turks, had guessed to be a coming
man. He had a soigrU, almost efFemiaate appearance, a
delicate complexion, fine long fingers, fair hair, and some-
thing of the tiger about him, something predatory in Ms
manicured hands, a bristle in his eyebrows, a glint of steel
in his pale blue eyes. Four months later, this dynamic
child of Fate was to become Chief of Staff to the Army of
Liberation which drove Abdxil Hamid into exile : in the
trials ahead of Turkey Mustapha Kemal was twice to
save his country from defeat during the Dardanelles cam-
paign, lead a revolution after the War, defy Europe, con-
quer the Greek Army, abolish the Caliphate, depose the
Sultan, rule as unquestioned dictator.

^8 GOLDEN HORN

Everyone stood up when Abdul Hunud shuffled in.
RlinTfing under the rays of a strong acetylene lamp, he
looked round, seeking a friend— there were few in that
assembly— and carried his glove to his lips and then to
his forehead. He seemed a sad old man, bowed down by
responsibility, and grieving for the ruin of his country,
which he foresaw but could not forestall.

Making a sign to his Master of Ceremonies, he listened
to the reading of his speech. Then came a prayer from an
’Alim of Mecca. Abdul Hamid extended his hands, with
palms upwards, to receive the blessing of the Most
High.

The Constitution had come to second birth, and a
hundred and one guns proclaimed that the daystar of
democracy had appeared.

During the next few ecstatic months, the Sultan made
himself extremely agreeable to the deputies who hoped
to dethrone him, and gave them an imposing State ban-
quet in Yildiz Kiosk. The President of the Chamber sat
at Abdul Hamid’s right hand. The Sultan offered him
water from his own private reservoir and listened with a
benignant smile to Ahmed Riza’s account of his exile in
Paris, when he had been so poor that he had had to cook
his own food. Let him forget the past, said the Sultan. A
High School for Girls was Ahmed Riza’s pet project : the
Sultan was delighted to further it. Education had always
been near his heart. It was through the schools, he said,
that he had encouraged the nation to breathe the stimu-
lating air of Liberty. He felt sure that he could rely on
the Committee to silence any purblind priests who might
object to little Moslem girls being taught their duties in
a democratic world.

THE END OF THE RED SULTAN 49

Never, said Abdul Hamid, had he been so happy as he
was at this moment, as a constitutional ruler, surrounded
by the elected Representatives of his children. All the
deputies kissed his hand, and some wept. Others said that
not since the days of the Prophet had the Caliph been so
close to his people.

But never had Abdul Hamid been more dangerous.

* * * *

Exactly how and by whom the Counter-Revolution of
April 1909 was instigated, remains a problem tangled in
a double plot. Yildiz Kiosk was implicated, for the Sul-
tan’s tobacco-cutter, Mustapha, confessed as much after
his master’s deposition. But across the plans of the Palace
ran the manoeuvres of the Committee, Up to the be-
ginning of 1909 the Young Turks had made use of
Liberal idealism in order to impress foreign observers ;
but now they felt that brotherly love and bouquets of
roses were not enough ; a little blood-letting was required
in Turkey.

The Sultan had to go : smooth words would not stop
his intrigues : he was still conspiring against them : he had
brains, experience, prestige on his side ; but if he were
given enough rope . . .

Early in 1909, straws indicated that the wind was
apparently blowing in Abdul Hamid’s favour. Priests,
out-of-work spies, cashiered officers and disappointed
place-men spread rumoxirs that the Government was in
the hands of pagans and that the Commander of the
Faithful was powerless. The establishment of the Girls’
High School at Candilli was a case in point : had good

Father Hamid been a free agent, said the reactionaries,

Dh

GOLDEN HORN

50

he would never have allowed Turkish wonaen to
be perverted by the monstrous customs of the Frank.
The fires of religious enthusiasm were not dead. A
young Greek was tom limb from limb for no other rea-
son than that he had married a Moslem girl. Moreover, it
was alleged (with tmth) that Ahmed Riza kept a French
mistress, and that the Officer Commanding the troops in
Constantinople neglected his daily prayers. Such things
would never have happened under the old regime ; nor
would the emancipated Army officers from Salonika
have been permitted to pester their soldiers with
continual drills, so that there was scarcely time for the
rank and file to sip coffee out of microscopic blue cups,
smoke cigarettes, wash their clothes, and perform the five
daily prostrations of the devout. In short, the Army felt
that it was being led a dog’s life in the name of National
Efficiency.

Nor was it only Moslems who were disappointed in the
Young Turks. The Armenians, whose secret societies were
the model on which the Committee had built its own
organisation, had begun to see that if the Committee suc-
ceeded in making Turkey one nation they could never
again enlist the sympathy of Europe and America on be-
half of an Independent Armenia ; for that, they must
have the old maladministration even if attended by the
old massacres. The same thoughts were in the minds of
the Ottoman Greeks and the Albanians ; to them. Union
and Progress meant oblivion and blight.

At midnight on April the 8th a scurrilous journalist
who had attacked both the Committee and the Reac-
tionaries was murdered by a person or persons unknown
on Galata Bridge. Both sides blamed the other. Anyhow
the man was dead. Feeling ran high, and higher still as

THE END OF THE RED SULTAN 5I

the days passed without the giiilty parties being dis-
covered.

The Sultan saw to it that the blackmailer was buried
with pomp. In Parliament the murder was discussed in a
tempest of recrimination, and the Committee blamed for
inaction. Matters moved swiftly to a crisis.

At dawn on April the 13 th, single armed men from the
reactionary troops in the Palace began to move in small
detachments to Stambul, making their way to the Square
of Aya Sophia. Amongst them were some of the White
Lancers of Yildiz, who had beaten four of their subalterns
to death, and had stripped and insulted the corpses be-
cause these young gentlemen had adorned their rooms
with pictures of naked women sipping champagne, cut
from La Vie Parisienne and Le Sourire. Moslem troopers,
they said, could not ride behind such lascivious infidels :
they wanted to re-establish the Sacred Law. A few hours
later a battalion of Chasseurs marched over Galata
Bridge in a body, preceded by little boys turning cart-
wheels. They were followed by other battalions from
Yildiz Kiosk and several squadrons of cavalry.

By noon there were many thousand soldiers in the
Square, inarticulate, but armed, and in a dangerous mood.
They had killed thirty-six officers, accused of whoring
after strange gods, and had wounded fifty. The Sheikh-
ul-Islam and other Moslem leaders went amongst them
and endeavoured to calm them, but the soldiers continued
to cry “ Tashassin Skeriat Peicamberi ! ” — “ Long live the
Law of the Prophet ! ” and “ Sheriat Isteriz ! ” — “ We
want the Sacred Law ! ”

If the Officer Commanding in Constantinople had been
allowed to exert his authority at this stage he could have
cleared the Square with a single loyal regiment, but

GOLDEN HORN

52

instead, he received strict orders from the Young Turk
Government that he was to do nothing. Knowing the
Committee as we now do, we find it hard to believe that
it did not relish the excuse of disorder. Its enemies were
playing into its hands : let Stambul do its worst : in
Salonika there was an Army Corps ready to march on the
capital.

Only sixty members remained in Parliament. The
whole of the party of Uruon and Progress had gone to
ground, and the remaining deputies had no idea what to
do. They telephoned to the Sublime Porte asking what
was happening ; they passed resolutions upholding both
the Sultan and Young Turks ; they declared that there
must be no bloodshed ; and they shivered whenever
the mutineers sounded their trumpets in the Square
outside.

As the afternoon wore on they had cause to tremble,
for the handsome young Druse deputy for Lattakia, Emir
Mohamed Arslan, was murdered under their eyes. The
Emir was making his way towards the Chamber, when
some soldiers set upon him : a fusillade rang out, and he
fell dead, not fifty paces from where the representatives
of the Omnipotent People sat in conclave. All the deputies
bolted. Such was their haste that two of them were in-
jured in jumping from a window.

Soldiers now ruled the dty, and the Ogre of Yildiz
smiled to himself. This was what came of Constitutions !
It was the old story— presently he would be asked to
restore order.

During the night, the mutineers fired more than a
million rounds indiscriminately at the moon and Galata
Tower, causing the accidental death of several citizens
and fnghtening others out of their wits.

THE END OF THE RED SULTAN 53

The black flag of the Mahdi — an ominous emblem —
fluttered at Galata Bridge. Everyone expected a massacre
of Christians similar to that which had recently occurred
at Adana. Only a few years ago, here in Constantinople,
five thousand Christians had been slaughtered : the
streets of the city had seen a Queen dragged naked to her
death, blinded ELings weeping at a usurper’s stirrup,
crucifixions, flayings, butcheries without parallel : if
there was to be more killing it would be all in a Stambul
night’s work.

For ten days the reactionary soldiers remained in power
and the city became a place of escapes and disguises, not
for the first or last time in her history. All active members
of the Committee were in hiding. The Minister of Justice
was shot dead by a soldier for refusing to hand over his
revolver. The Union and Progress Club was wrecked.
All the Embassies were besieged by refugees.

The Captain of a Turkish cruiser, Ali Kabuli Bey, was
seized by his crew and dragged to the Palace, trussed up
like a refractory animal. On his arrival, Abdul Hamid
appeared at a window and asked what was the matter ?

The people answered that the prisoner had aimed his
quick-firing guns at Yildiz Kiosk.

“ Take him away — ^hc should be tried — ” said the
Sultan, withdrawing hurriedly, for blood was never shed
in his presence. Hardly had he left the balcony, before
a ripple ran through the crowd and Ali Kabuli was
trampled down and killed.

**■!>«

And now the Sultan smiled no longer, for as the
hours and days passed, the news given to him by his

GOLDEN HORN

54

cigarette-rolling servant Mustafa became less and less
reassuring.

Mahmud Shevket Pasha, the Union and Progress
General who was commanding the Third Army Corps
at Salonika, was advancing rapidly on the capital with
23,000 troops loyal to the Committee. Against Shevket’s
men the Sultan could muster 30,000 soldiers, but they
were leaderless, and he himself was beginning to feel very
tired.

These were also anxious days for Shevket Pasha,
however, for Abdul Hamid had still a card up his
sleeve. If the riff-raff of Constantinople had drawn
their knives on April the 22nd, a massacre might have
occurred which would have forced the Great Powers
to intervene. Then the Sultan would have smiled again,
secure in his triple-walled fortress, for he could
play on the jealousies of Europe as a master on a violin.

As a matter of fact Abdul Hamid had not neglected the
possibilities of this idea ; and the Kurdish porters at the
railway station were prepared for a rising in the best
manner of 1896, only the operations had been timed to
begin one day too late.

“ Baba Hamid bitdi ! ” — “ Father Hamid is done for ! ”
— said the soldiers who invested the great, half-hostile
city.

Early on Friday, April the 23rd, the city was attacked
from various directions by the Army of Liberation, the
Navy having previously been seduced away from the
Golden Horn and anchored opposite the Macedonian
headquarters at tibe suburb of San Stefano, Under the
orders of Shevket Pasha, Niazi Bey and his men carried
the Sublime Porte after a sharp encounter. Enver Bey

THE END OF THE RED SULTAN 55

with the main assaulting column attacked the big bar-
racks lying between Yildiz Kiosk and the city, and shelled
the Sultan’s troops into submission after a four hours’
battle. With the Gommander-in-Chief remained a spruce
and steely-eyed subaltern : one day he too was to enter
this city as Ghazi Mustafa Kemal Pasha.

By evening, three-quarters of the capital had been
taken by the Liberators. Only Yildiz Kiosk held out, and
the garrison of Scutari on the Asiatic shore.

Twenty thousand fighting men, flushed with victory,
were billeted in Pera and Stambul, but they were
under such excellent discipline that there was no disorder.
Frightened old ladies were shown into the horse-trams by
bashihazouks, cadets from the Military College acted as
Boy Scouts to guard the Embassies, and two English
girls sat all afternoon on a roof between the cross-fire of
assailants and defenders at Tash Elishla Barracks, making
a sketch of the battle. (But then the English always have
been mad ! ) No conquering army has ever taken a rich
metropolis with greater courtesy to non-combatants. Do
we see here the delicate hand of Kemal ?

Yildiz Eliosk was now cut off from communication by
land and sea, and the Committee knew that Abdul Hamid
was in its power at last The following questions were pre-
pared, and propounded to the Fetva-Emind without
delay : —

“ If an imam of the Moslems tampers with and bums
the sacred books ; if he appropriates public money ; if,
after kflling, imprisoning and exiling his subjects unjustly,
he swears to amend his ways, and then perjures himself ;
if he causes civil war and bloodshed among his own
people ; if it is shown that his country will gain peace by
his removal ; and if it is considered by those who have

GOLDEN HORN

56

power that this imam should abdicate or be deposed, is
it lawful that one of these alternatives should be
adopted ? ”

The answer was “ Olur ” : “ It is permissible.”

Abdul Hamid probably knew of these enquiries, but
he affected to regard himself as unconcerned in a squabble
between two Army Corps. “ The Padishah has nothing
to gain or fear from the so-called Constitutional Army,”
his First Secretary announced : “ His Majesty has always
been in favour of the Constitution and is its supreme
guardian. When, therefore, the soldiers of the Third
Army Corps arrive in Constantinople, they will be wel-
comed as guests.”

Having dictated this message on Friday night, he sent
for his Chamberlain to read aloud to him : a new Conan
Doyle story had appeared in the Strand Magazine, and
as usual it had been immediately translated by the Press
Bureau in Yildiz Kiosk. So Abdul Hamid passed the long
hours, with a shawl over his knees, lying on a divan,
smoking, listening to the adventures of Sherlock Holmes,
while the Army of Liberation closed in round the
Palace.

When the Second Eunuch knocked on his door next
morning to tell him that another battle was in progress,
he merely shrugged his shoulders and went to his bath as
usual, and then to the Little Mabeyn.

Abdul Hamid’s confidence, however, was not shared
by his servants. Hundreds of them fled from the Palace.
The electric light failed and the kitchen fires went out.
Instead of the brilliant illumination which the Sultan
loved, Yildiz was dark on Saturday night, and more than
ever haunted by its master’s fear. No meals were cooked.

THE END OF THE RED SULTAN 57

No courtiers came. Eunuchs whispered gloomily together.
Women ate cold scraps alone. Presently a Princess began
to cry from boredom, or bewilderment, or unsatisfied
appetite. And then — spreading quickly — the nerves of all
the inhabitants of the harem broke down : an epidemic
of hysteria overtook them, an infection of unreasoning,
inhuman panic in which the wild shrieks of women
mingled with the bestial howling of eunuchs.

In order to calm his dependents, and doubtless to
reassure himself, Abdul Hamid ordered his guards to
march roimd the Little Mabeyn, so that their footsteps
crunching on the gravel might drown the sounds of panic.
But the soldiers did not make enough noise, so the band
played, and that was better ; but whenever the music
ceased the night would be filled with voices — voices
that alarmed even the Macedonians surrounding the
Palace.

Brutes gave tongue as well as the human inmates.
Zebras brayed, lion cubs roared, dogs howled, cats courted
each other in the ornamental shrubbery, regardless but
not nescient of human fate, parakeets screeched upon
the name of Allah. In that labyrinth of gravelled paths
and huddled villas, of cages and artificial lakes, the con-
tagion spread and grew imtil the whole of Yildiz Kiosk
went mad.

That night, Abdul Hamid could not listen to detective
stories. He went into his carpenter’s shop, and looked at
the well-worn handles of the tools he had so often used.
Would anyone, he asked himself, remember his fine inlay
work after he had gone, or the panels that he had made
for his study ? What was to be his fate ? And what the
fate of all his pets ? Who would feed his twenty
thousand pigeons? Or care for his women? Would

GOLDEN HORN

58

anyone give his Jersey cows their diet of Anatolian pears ?
What of his canaries, zebras, retrievers, pumas, goldfish.
Barbary apes ?

Close by the study was his bathroom, where he had so
often and so anxiously attempted to rejuvenate himself
for his public appearances, taking milk-baths, rubbing his
skull and chin with unguents, drinking strange tisanes in
order to impart lustre to his eyes and firmness to his
step. He would never need such restoratives again.

He would never need the two thousand waistcoats, the
trunkfiil of neckties, the mountains of socks and collars, the
sackfuls of coin, the leather bags containing ;^200,ooo
worth of pearls and rubies and emeralds, the chests
of mixed banknotes and medals for tips, and the
twenty thousand keys that he had hoarded in various
comers. Rubbish and jewels, they were all one. His
continual changes in the arrangements of rooms had been
purposeless also : there had been no point in walling up
doors, opening new ones, narrowing passages, making
windows and closing them again, keeping revolvers by
every divan (there were a thousand of them in the Palace)
and telling his servants to prepare a bed in one room and
then sleeping in another, in order to foil myth-assailants.
Such measures would not save him from the Committee.
He knew (none better) how easily inconvenient person-
ages could be conjured away ; and now the knowledge
horrified him .

Hanging in the corridor outside the study, a crude
picture in oils showed Midhat Pasha and his fellow
reformers dressed as foreigners : they stood in a boat,
offering gold to a group of naked girls posturing upon
the shore. It was supposed to represent the evils which
would follow the adoption of democracy, and some said

THE END OF THE RED SULTAN 59

that the Sultan himself had painted it. Certainly he had
long admired it ; and it now reminded him of how right
he had been in his forebodings. Corruption of the West
had bitten deep into Turkey. Gone was the simple faith
in the Padishah. EGs days were numbered in Yildiz
Kiosk. All he had built and collected, what-not by what-
not, brick by brick, spy upon counter-spy, would soon be
scattered and undone.

His life had been wasted. He had made himself an
absolute autocrat, but liberty was an illusion : it meant
only the privilege of tying one’s own fetters.

How many hours had he sat on that study chair (care-
fully insulated lest it be struck by lightning) reading the
reports of his spies ? He possessed in the adjoining rooms
three hundred boxes of djournah which, if their contents
were ever published, would disclose the surprising private
lives not only of many great Pashas but of some respected
diplomats and eminent editors of foreign newspapers.
Yet the result of aU that hard and dirty work was that he
was a prisoner in his own Palace, a slave of his own
system.

Abdul Houda had told him that he would only reign
thirty-three years, and the old astrologer had been right.
A change was close. He felt it in his bones, and so did
every sentient thing surrounding him. His cats knew it,
and prowled about the lawns and summer-houses with
prophetic malaise. Even the street dogs of Constantinople
knew it, according to those who brought him news from
the city. Instead of basking in the streets, as was the dogs’
custom, they were now grouting into aU the heaps of
rubbish they could find. They were digging themselves in,
having guessed that there was to be shooting. They could
not escape, for each pack had its own quarter of the dty :

GOLDEN HORN

6o

if an alien animal desired to pass through another district,
it had to lie on its back every few yards and wave its paws
propitiatingly to the canine frontier police— just like the
people of the Balkans, thought Abdul Hamid. They also
had scented danger, and could not escape the conse-
quences of their quest for freedom.

All round him the world lay dark and menacing. Here
he was at the end of his life, confronted by a chimera,
called a Constitution, which would destroy him and
dismember his country. Shadows were more terrible than
substantial enemies : shadows of the past as well of the
future. ... In after years, when a prisoner, he cursed
himself for his inaction during this critical time, but that
night he was in the black valley of a phthisical gloom, too
exhausted to think of anything but old mistakes and
coming disasters.

Memory registered many things against his wish : the
head of strangled Midhat, for instance, with its suffused
eyes and runnels of gore about the ears, and the death
cries of the Armenians who had been implicated in the
attempt on his life in 1905. The Armenians had been
examined — by what methods he had not enquired — ^in a
neighbouring kiosk, and had screamed, as his women
were screaming now. Some of them, he knew, had died
xmder torture (a spy had publicly confessed it, unfortu-
nately) and they had been brought secretly to burial with
weals of whips and brands of red-hot irons across their
stomachs, and thumbs wrenched off, and hands severed,
and spines stretched by the rack.

Would that he had been blind and deaf during his
reign ! Had he been so, he would not have shot his
favourite child when she had awakened him unexpectedly
out of a nap, nor would he have killed a gardener who

THE END OF THE RED SULTAN 6l

Sprang up out of a bush, salaaming, while he was strolling
amongst his flower-beds. Neither daughter nor servant
had meant any harm. It had been their fate to fall, as it
was now his to pass into the hands of men possessed by the
seven devils of democracy.

Mr. Gladstone had called him The Great Assassin.
Gladstone forgot that in his own country, and in the
nineteenth century, a woman had been hanged at the
Marble Arch for stealing a few yards of flannel to cover
her new-born baby. That had happened in i8oi. Turkey
was a backward country in the estimation of the world
and England an advanced one, but there was one law for
Turkey and another for Europe. Who but the Great
Powers had encouraged the Armenians and Greeks and
Bulgarians in impossible autonomies and armed rebel-
lions ? In former days, these and other races had been
contented under Turkish rule. Spanish Jews had been
glad to seek refuge here from the Inqxxisition. In the old
days an English king had sent a commission to enquire
into the excellent administration of justice in Turkey.
And if, of late, there had been some bloodshed amongst
revolting Christians, what had Cromwell done in
Ireland ?

A raucous cry oS Padishamiz chokyasha!“ interrupted
his reflections. But this was no loyal subject wishing him
prosperity : it was only a starving parrot, calling attention
to itself with the most cheerful remark it could remember.

In years to come, many other voices were to wish long
life to Abdul Hamid and mourn the good old days of
autocracy ; but they were to speak in whispers, for fear
of the Committee.

02 GOLDEN HORN

When the hysteria in the harem had spent itself, the
Sultan, still outwardly nonchalant, sent further emissaries
to the Army of Liberation to renew his suggestion that the
troops shoiild consider themselves as his guests while in
Constantinople. But the guests, when they came to see
him on Monday morning, said nothing to his liking.

General Essad Bey was chief of the delegates from the
Committee of Union and Progress. With him came a
Jew, a Greek, and an Armenian. The deputation was met
by the First Secretary, and after some delay was taken to
the reception room in the Little Mabeyn, where Essad
Pasha knocked for some time without receiving an
answer.

At last they were admitted, but his Sublimity at first
remained hidden.

In the centre of the room was a table, carrying a bottle
of red medicine : near the garden window stood a piano
and a white stove : under the stove lay a pair of galoshes :
on the left of the door a large Japanese screen hid a corner
of the apartment from the view of the deputation. Every-
one waited in silence. Several clocks ticked.

Then from behind the screen (where an invisible
Ogre had listened to many an examination) the Sultan
shambled out towards Essad Pasha, wearing the loose
greatcoat in which he went to Friday Prayer. He was
accompamied by his seventeen-year old son, Abdurrahim
Effendi.

Essad Pasha saluted, and came to the point at once :

“ In conformity with the fetoa that has been pro-
nounced,” he said, “ the nation has deposed you. The
National Assembly charges itself with your personal
seciurity and that of your family. You have nothing to fear
from anybody. Be reassured ! ”

THE END OF THE RED SULTAN 63

“ This is Kismet,” said the Sultan.

Then the old fear welled up again. Its resurgence shook
him physically and left the blood frozen in his veins.

“ Is my life to be spared ? ” he muttered.

“ The Ottomans are magnanimous,” answered Essad
Pasha.

The Sultan was not sure. He asked the delegates to
swear that his life was safe. He was not a criminal, he said.
History would bear witness that he had done much for
his country, and that he had won the Greco-Turkish war.

“ We do not commit injustice,” said Essad Pasha,
surveying the descendant of Mahomed the Conqueror
and Suleiman the Magnificent.

Then the Sultan asked that he might be allowed to live
in the Tcheragan Palace, where his mad brother had been
confined. Essad Pasha promised to submit this request
to Parliament, and turned on his heel. He could say Uttle,
for he knew that there was a party within the Committee
that wanted to see the Sultan swing. The delegates
withdrew.

The Palace eunuchs were dazed by the turn affairs had
taken : if the Slayer of Infidels could be treated thus,
what would happen to them? Abdul Hamid dismissed
them with a nod.

For a time silence reigned in the audience chamber.
Then from Dolma Baghtche Palace came the thunder of
cannon annoimcing the accession of Mahomed Reschid
Eflfendi to the throne of Othman ; and poor little
Abdurrahim Effendi began to sob as if his heart would
break.

At nine o’clock that night two squadrons of cavalry
and two armoured cars drew up at the gate of Yildiz

64 GOLDEN HORN

Kiosk. General Husni Pasha, attended by officers and
policemen, demanded to see the Sultan.

Abdul Hamid received him with both hands in his
pockets, either to disguise their trembling, or because they
gripped something.

“ The delicacy of my mission,” said the General, “ will,
I hope, be appreciated by Your Majesty. I come here at
the command of the Nation and the Army to discuss with
you the question of your life. You have no reason to fear
that anything untoward will happen to you provided you
consent to the arrangements we shall make for your
safety. You know the history of your predecessors.
We do not wish anything similar to happen again. The
people do not wish it. Nevertheless it is their irrevocable
decision that two Sultans cannot remain in the same
place.”

The Sultan answered : “ I understand you. What do
you wish ? ”

“ I am to take you to Salonika.”

Abdul Hamid made as if he had not heard. He detested
travelling. For long years he had taken only one excursion
annually, as far as the Old Seraglio, where custom com-
pelled him to venerate the tooth which Mahomed had
lost at the battle of Oherd, the hoof-mark of his steed,
and his Standard and Mantle. That journey and the
weekly scamper to the Selamliks’^ was the whole of his
ambit. Now he was to be dragged away from his gardens
and lakes and carpenter’s shop to pass his old age in the
city that had ruined him.

Husni Pasha repeated his declaration. The Sultan
slowly took his hands from his pockets and moved them

^ Friday Prayer, always held by Abdul Hamid in the little Haznidi£
Mosque next door to Yildiz Kiosk.

THE END OF THE RED SULTAN 65

in a dazed way, as one whose reflexes have been slowed
by shock.

“ Why to Salonika ? ” he said at last ; “ what are you
saying ? I am an old man. I am ill. I want to pass my last
days at the Tcheragan Palace, where I was born, and
where Murad died. That is the proper place for me. Or
give me my freedom, and let me go to Europe.”

The Sultan began to stammer, tottered towards the
support of a table, failed to reach it, fainted. His women
rushed out from behind the screen and wept over him.
Abdurrahim brought him water. His Highness the Grand
Eunuch fanned him with a djourrud, cursing his luck that
he was still in the Palace and not safely on his way to
Abyssinia.

General Husni gave his orders : three Qpeens, four
concubines, two Princes, four eunuchs, five maids, and
nine other servants would accompany the ex-Sultan to
Szilonika. There would be no time to pack anything but
the barest personal necessities. The Imperial carriages
would be ready in half-an-hour. Luggage wohld follow.
The Government would attend to all the ex-Sultan’s
wishes, provided that he did not stand upon the order of
his going.

At midnight, amidst confusion and dismay, Abdul
Hamid was escorted to a large landau, with his three
Qpeens and two Princes. Before them rode a squadron of
cavalry. Behind them came slaves and servants, followed
by another squadron.

Forty-eight hours ago, he had been a ruler before
whom Turkey trembled. Even forty-eight minutes ago,
he might have pulled out his pistols if he had been
physically threatened. Now he mumbled about his
special drinking-water and his favourite cat.

£b

GOLDEN HORN

66

Troops stood to arms in the silent streets, but no-one,
save those immediately concerned, knew that the poor
old Ogre was leaving his lair for ever.

This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

CHAPTER III

VULTURES OF CHRISTENDOM

“ There falls perpetual snow upon a broken plain
And through the twilight filled with flakes the white earth joins the
sky :

Grim as a famished, wounded wolf,

The Turk stands up to die,

“ Intrigues within, intrigues without, no nnan to trust.

He feeds street dogs that starve with him ; to friends who are his foe.
To Greeks and Bulgars in his line, he flings a sudden crust —

The Turk who has to go.

“ By infamous, unbridled tongues and dumb deceit
Through pulpits and the Stoci Exchange the Balkans do their work.
The preacher in the chapel and the hawker in the street
Feed on the dying Turk.”

Aubrey Herbert.

The NEW Siiltan, Mehmed Reschad, took the name of
his great ancestor Mahomed the Conqueror, and became
the fifth of that name when he was girt with the Sword
of Othman — “ Mahomed the Conquered ” wits called
him, for he was a bibulous but kindly dotard, who had
exchanged the captivity of Abdul Hamid for the coercion
of the Committee, and signed everything that was put
before him, from the death warrant of one of his own
relations to the secret treaty with Germany that brought
Turkey into the Great War. “ Controlled by a kind of
jew-jitsu,” was the verdict of the Pera diplomats.

After his accession, France and England enjoyed a
prestige with the Young Turks which might have re-
habilitated Tiurkey ; but would have left her a depend-
ency. That was not to be. ** God builds the nest of the

GOLDEN HORN

68

blind bird,” and the Empire of Othman was destined to
be cemented with the blood of unparalleled sacrifices.

We were all being swept into the whirlpool of war.
The desire for nationhood of races extending from Sofia
to Basra would have asserted itself sooner or later : these
people all had some right on their own side, but their
rights were mutually incompatible. Is peace the earthly
goal of society, as Saint Augustine said ? The Young
Turks did not think so ; in the interests of civilisation
they considered it necessary to destroy men as well as
ideas, and made a clean sweep of their opponents.
Batches of reactionaries were hung at the Stambul end of
Galata Bridge — the city’s Piccadilly Circus — together
with the more conspicuous members of the late Sultan’s
camarilla.

The terrible Twisted Beard Pasha was amongst the
condemned. When he saw that his executioners were
gypsies, he refused from them the olive and glass of water
which are proffered as a sign of peace to those about to
die. Except for this gesture of disdain, however, he was
calm ; washed his face and hands, rinsed his mouth,
listened for the Voice of God with fingers to his ears,
prostrated himself, and prepared for the end with a long
prayer. The gypsies, after having allowed him to commit
his soul to AUah and his cigarette case to a spectator,
pulled away a stool from under his feet ; but his vitality
was such that he did not die in the ordinary way : two
men had to swing on his legs for several minutes before
the once-dreaded head lay harmless in the noose.

The condemned eunuchs did not behave so well. Some
attempted to grip the gallows-posts with their legs, others
yelped and bit, but they were given but little time to
struggle, for everyone hated them.

VULTURES OF CHRISTENDOM 69

His Highness the Grand Eunuch was the last but one
of the Palace gang to suffer the penalty for his crimes. He
did not make a fuss, but was the victim of a blunder which
may have been malicious : his chins were so numerous
that the gypsies roped him round the lower jaw instead
of under it, with the result that Djevher Agha died neither
by strangulation nor by dislocation of the vertebrae, but
by an elongation of the neck due to his weight.

The last victim — another eunuch — offered to hang
himself, for he was disgusted by the appearance of his
late chief, whose carcase now dangled from a thread of
throat. The suggestion was accepted, whereupon the
eimuch adjusted the rope with a neatness that showed that
he was no amateur in executions, and stepped off his
platform with the air of one who has chosen a short cut
to a better, completer world.

These popinjays airing themselves in carriages in the
Grand Rue de Pera, had long been familiar to Constan-
tinopolitans. Always they had been dressed in the height
of fashion, with the latest and loudest of collars and ties,
the shiniest of boots, the slimmest-waisted of frock-coats ;
now they wriggled in stained shrouds. ... To see them
strangled, limp and pop-eyed, was a diverting spectacle
for some citizens, and a chastening spectacle for others
who had put their faith in Princes, but very few mourned
them. Amongst the crowd that crossed the bridge that
morning, however, there happened to be a little Egyptizin
slave-girl, the friend of Mest6 Alem ; and she was sorry.
Sorry until she recognised one of the victims, when pity
turned to terror and despair.

She had been too sensitive, too intcUectualised, to
adapt herself to the bovine life of the harem, until she

GOLDEN HORN

70

had met His Highness. Then all had changed : she had
been no longer of the legion of the xmwanted, gossiping,
nibbling sweets, trying to forget the pitiless tides of desire
that Nature sent through her veins. She had been loved,
and happy. Looking up, she saw a thing that stopped
her heart : there was her arrogant and elegant lover
ban g ing over Galata Bridge — ^the caricature of a corpse
with lolling tongue and yard-long neck.

The garden of her life withered in that instant, and
her reason vanished.

♦ ♦ * *

A slave-girl’s despair would be a small thing compared
to a nation’s rejoicing, if joy there had been at the
Committee’s success. But there was now only discontent
in Turkey, and intrigue in Europe to hasten her down-
fall. Half Christendom wanted to rape her. The other
half assumed a deprecating attitude, but made no serious
protest so long as the deed was done under a blanket of
beautiful words ; as was Bulgaria’s declaration of inde-
pendence, and the seizxire of Bosnia-Herzegovina by
Austria-Himgary, which were both in defiance of the
Treaty of Berlin.

In Constantinople, the drastic methods of the Young
Turks aroused the opposition of firiends as well as enemies.
An Englishman spoke frankly on the subject to Taalat
Bey, then Minister of the Interior, complaining to him of
the attempted murder of a Levantine British subject.

“ You say that the attempt was unsuccessful,” protested
Taalat, “ so it cannot have been our affair. We don’t
make mistakes like that : when we shoot, we kill.”

“Nevertheless,” said the Englishman, “your violent
methods are antagonising public opinion. You can’t have

VULTURES OF CHRISTENDOM 71

a democratic government conducted by a secret society.”

“ There is no secret society,” said Taalat. “ The Will
of the People is supreme.”

“ Which people ? Cretans, Greeks, Albanians, Armen-
ians, Arabs, Druses, Kurds, Jews or Anatolians ? ”

“ We are all Ottomans.”

“ From reports published recently,” said the English-
man, “ you are not treating your Christian Ottomans in
Macedonia very kindly. I am told that ten thousand of
them have been bastinadoed there, and that they came
to compldn to their priests on their knees, their feet
having been beaten to pulp.”

“ That is a lie ! ” said Taalat. “ The usual dirty Balkan
propaganda ! You have no idea of the conditions in this
part of Europe. The Balkans are obsessed by various and
divergent Great Ideas. Russia wants Constantinople ;
and Austria, Salonika. Leaving them aside, we have to
reckon with Greater Servia, Greater Montenegro, Greater
Bulgaria, Greater Greece. None of these Ideas can be
accomplished without the disruption of my country, so
our neighbours are all anxious to prove that Turkey is
unfit to exist. Many societies have been founded with this
object. In Belgrade there are two. One is open, the other
secret. One works by books, the other by bombs. The
cultural society is called the Narodna Odbrana, and is all
uplifi: and idealism. I have nothing against the patriots
who belong to it. I am a patriot myself. But I do object
to the Servian Black Hand. Perhaps you have never heard
of it ? Well, it is the most skilfully directed and the most
savage revolutionary movement in the modern world.
Its members killed King Alexander and Qjieen Draga.
You may remember how they surprised the King and
Qjieen in their bedroom. One of the murderers hacked off

GOLDEN HORN

72

the King’s ring finger in order to take his signet, another
cut a strip of skin from the Qjneen’s breast in order to
keep it in his pocket-book as a memento, and a third
did worse. ^

“ These people are still at work, stirring up trouble,”
continued Taalat. “You don’t know what is being done
in the name of patriotism and religion in the Balkans.
A Christian brigand recently confessed that before going
out to raid he and his comrades partook of a sacrament in
which their wine was the blood of the Turks. With such
men and such methods, isn’t it natural that Thrace and
Macedonia should be seething with feuds ? If we bastinado
a few Bulgarian or Greek comiiadjis you hear all about it
in Europe, but you know nothing of the atrocities that
Christians commit on each other, and on us.”

“ If you gave more freedom to your European prov-
inces,” suggested the Englishman, “ the problem would
be simplified.”

“ On the contrziry,” Taalat answered, “ it would be
complicated. The populations are too mixed. Also wc
can’t aflford to lose any more territory. If wc yield an
inch of ground to the Christians, omr own people will turn
on us. Already they suspect of us being infidels. There is
a strong reactionary party here. We are ready to give
equal rights to all who are Ottoman subjects, but wc
can’t and won’t tolerate autonomy. Our policy is Otto-
manisation. We must make ourselves one nation. It can
be done. Look at Japan ! She has changed the face of the
Far East. We can do the same in the Levant.”

1 He drove his rapier up to the quillon into the pubic region of the
Qjueen^s living body. These men are alleged to have instigated the crime of
Serajevo. Their leader, Colonel Dimitrijevitch, was Chief of the Intelli-
gence Section of the Servian War Office in 1914 : he was tried for high
treason in 1917, and executed, p^aps because he knew too much about
the events which led to the Great War.

VULTURES OF CHRISTENDOM 73

“Japan was always more or less one people, secure in
her islands. You are in a very different position.”

“ Our position is impregnable as long as we maintain
our Army. It will secure us the breathing space which we
need for internal reform. Already it has accomplished
great things. Foreigners said that the Army of Liberation
would take months to reach Constantinople from Sal-
onika. We were masters of the situation in a fortnight.”

“ Yes, but you had no serious enemy against you. How
long will it take you, even with Marshal von der Goltz’s
help, to organise the supply and transport, the rolling-
stock, the aeroplanes, searchlights, artillery, machine
guns and medical stores necessary for a modern war ? ”

“ Ask Mahmoud Shevket Pasha,” Taalat replied. “ He
knows. He surprised you before, and will surprise you
again. We must choose between being pupils or slaves.
Exploitation by Germany is a lesser evil than partition
by the Great Powers.”

“ I agree with you that it is in the interests of Germany
to keep you alive and intact for her own purposes,” said
the Englishman. “ But Germany is no more altruistic
than France or England. You have an almost super-
human task before you. It is dangerous, Effendi, to dream
of your Army as invincible, or your natural resources as
illimitable. Your communications arc bad, much of your
land is exhausted, and your peasants are ignorant. You
Yoimg Turks have been dazzled by success. You have
come from districts where you were paid irregularly.
Here in Constantinople a river of gold seems to be
flowing into the Treasury. But how long will it last ? ”

“ It has lasted throughout the Hamidian regime. Under
our rule, prosperity will double and even treble itself.”

“ Maybe. But you will have to sink enormous sums of

GOLDEN HORN

74

money in the development of your country. And where
will you get the credits to do that ? You have failed to
raise a loan in Paris and London. You have had plenty
of good wishes, but they are broken reeds in time of
trouble. Do you think the English Liberals will help you
if you are in difficulties ? Or Italian Freemasons ? Or
French financiers ? Or Jews ? Or even Germans ? God
help you if you do ! Bismarck was right when he said that
the world war would start in the East. And Napoleon was
right when he said that the dominant question in Euro-
pean politics was who was to have Constantinople. That
is still a dominant question. Your Empire to-day owes
its existence to quarrels amongst its enemies. If they should
ever compose their differences, they would fall on you —
in the flick of an eyelash ! ”

* * * *

Events followed the Englishman’s prediction. Through-
out 1910 and 1911 the Committee were faced with strikes
,and revolts. A fire (the third in two years) broke out in
Stambul which burned down several acres of the slope
facing the Golden Horn, and left forty thousand people
homeless. The budget for 1911 showed a deficit of
;^g,ooo,ooo. Bedouins captured the holy city of Medina.
An army of 30,000 men was sent to take it back, which
interfered with Mahmud Shevket’s plans for training his
troops to guard against a threatened attack in the Balkans.
There was anarchy in Iraq. The Macedonian kettle was
boiling so hard that the lid was sure to blow off soon.^

1 The Bulgarian Committee of Internal Organisation submitted a mem-
orandum to the Consuls of Great Britain, Russia, Austria-Hungary and
France, in which it was stated that : “ Comparing the present state of things
to that which esdsted during the last five years of the reign of Abdul
Hamid, when there was European control in Macedonia, the people find
the present situation much more abominable, and much more insup-
portable.”

VULTURES OF CHRISTENDOM 75

Crete was in turmoil and her elected representatives sat
on the doorsteps of the Athens ParKament, claiming
admittance. The child of Liberty, greeted so rapturously
in 1908, now mewled and puked in the squalid obKvion
of a few newspaper ofl&ces of Constantinople, while in
Athens, Belgrade, Sofia, and Cettinje, Monarchs and
Ministers concerted their plans for strangling the dis-
agreeable Young Turk infant as soon as possible. Their
only regret was that they had not taken the necessary
measures at birth.

But Italy anticipated the Ninth Crusade by more than
a year, and on September the 28th, 1911, despatched an
ultimatum to the Sublime Porte, demanding the evacua-
tion of Tripoli within twenty-four hours. Next day war
was declared.

Four times the Turkish Grand Vizier appealed to the
Great Powers for protection, and four times the Great
Powers refused to listen to his pleading. Years ago Lord
Salisbury had declared that Italy would take Tripoli
when the moment was propitious. The sportsman who
wants to shoot a stag, he had observed, must wait until
it comes within the range of his rifle. Now the stag had
been stalked : Italy’s patience was about to be rewarded.

Turks asked themselves where the spoliation of their
country would end. Bosnia, Bulgaria and Crete had
gone : now Tripoli had been taken. They became hysteri-
cal with hate, and not without reason. “ I will not eat
maccaroni,” was a vow signed by thousands of patriots
whose names appeared in the newspapers of Constan-
tinople.

Mustafa Kemal Bey, fresh from France, where he had
been following the manoeuvres in Picardy, sailed for

GOLDEN HORN

76

Tripoli. Fethi and Enver Beys, now military attaches in
Paris and Berlin, also left their posts to help the Arabs,
and organised them so well that the Italians made little
progress. Neither side looked like winning, but Italy had
sea-power.

Cabinets of compromise succeeded each other in Con-
stantinople, led by old Kiamil, old Said, Ferid, Tewfiq,
Hilmi, Hakki. Some did too little, others too much. As
usual, the Committee dared not trust its own members
with the Grand Vizierate, yet was unable to find men
outside its ranks who were at once capable and
pliable.

When the new Parliament was opened by the Sultan
on April the i8th, 1912, the Italian fleet bombarded the
Dardanelles. In July the Straits were again attacked by
torpedo-boats. The Committee now fell from power, and
fled to Salonika, not sorry to allow others to pull what
chestnuts they could out of the fire of Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity and Justice. A Cabinet of Greybeards (“ a
divan of dotards ” the Committee called it) was elected
to make peace with Albania and Italy. When that had
been done, and the winter passed, the Young Turks
hoped once more to assume control tind lead the Army
against Bulgaria.

But Bulgaria and her Allies were not inclined to wait
on the pleasure of von der Goltz Pasha and Enver Bey.
They watched the Greybeards make peace with the
Albanians, and stirred up that turbulent people to new
insurrections, which were bloodily repressed and fully
reported in Europe by the various propaganda centres
engaged in describing the Terrible Turk as Anti-Christ.
Carefully, piously, the friends of the Fox prepared for
their Holy War.

VULTURES OF CHRISTENDOM 77

In their plans they were abetted — although unwittingly
as far as any base motives were concerned — by the late
J. D. Bourchier, an Irishman of sanguine temperament
who had been a schoolmaster before he became a journ-
alist. Bourchier’s headquarters were at Sofia, where he
was on terms of intimacy with King Ferdinand ; but it
was in Greece that the Big Idea took shape, in the fiery
crucibles of a Celtic and Cretan brain. Bourchier and M.
Venizelos went together on a pilgrimage to the tomb of
Byron, and rode on muleback over the slopes of Pelion
in the winter of 1910- 1 1 ; and it was then that the diver-
gent policies of the Balkans were first fused into one
explosive object. When, a year later, M. Venizelos tele-
graphed to Bomchier on the outbreak of the Balkan War :
“ I thank you, and I clasp your hand as one of the prin-
cipal artisans of this magnificent work of cementing the
rniion of the Christian peoples of the Peninsula,” he was
saying no more than was universally admitted.

Except love, there is no bond stronger than that of a
common hate.

“Few of the conquerors of the world have eflfected
more,” said an English newspaper in writing of Bour-
chier’s work : “ For ever will the soul triumph over the
material. No earthly forces can withstand the onslaught
of a great idea.”

It was true. Vast tracts of territory changed hands.
Millions of people changed their rulers. More soldiers
were engaged at Lule Burgas in the autumn of 1912 than
ever in the world’s history before that date, and were
there more scientifically shattered than ever before. The
rout of the Turks after that battle was a fmr foretaste of
greater miseries to come. Intrigue and treachery had
never previously been so shameless. Slaughter had

GOLDEN HORN

78

rarely been so sudden. Within a year half a million men
had perished in battles which settled not h i n g. The Great
War was brought a step nearer. No conqueror had as
yet compassed so much, and so quickly.

But we cannot blame Bourchier, who was a tool of
destiny. If he had remained at Eton (where the boys
ragged him) someone else would have taught the Balkans
their lesson. Ferdinand and Gueschoff were ready to do
it in Bulgaria, Petar and Paschitsh in Servia, Nikola in
Montenegro. Armaments were piling up in South Eastern
Europe : inevitably, either battle or bankruptcy must have
been their outcome. As early as October, 1911, a provi-
sional agreement had been reached between Greece,
Bulgaria, Servia and Montenegro to drive the Turks
from Europe (they had just tortured and killed a Bishop
and his deacon at Grevena) and the Czar of Russia had
secretly consented to act as arbiter in the division of the
territory which the Crusaders hoped to conquer. In
March, 1912, the military chiefs of the Allies had de-
clared that their soldiers could reach Adrianople within
forty-eight hours of the outbreak of war. All was ready.
It was impossible for Greece to tolerate the Cretan ques-
tion any longer, or Bulgaria the Macedonian ; and it was
equally impossible for the Turkish Government to yield
to the Christian demands without being driven from
power by the diehards of Islam, for these good people,
as so often happens, were themselves too old to line the
last ditch.

3|c 4 k )|e I|t

It was on October the 8th, 1912 — and then prema-
turely, for King Nikola of Montenegro had sold a bear
of BaUcan securities on the Vienna Stock Exchange and
wanted his profits — ^that the first shot was fired in the

VULTURES OF CHRISTENDOM 79

Ninth Crusade. KLings Ferdinand and George and
Petar sent remonstrances to the impulsive fourth royal
horseman of the Apocalypse, and Lord Crewe in the
House of Lords (fearing that the Turks might win) an-
nounced that “ under no circumstances would the
Powers tolerate any change in the status quo of South
Eastern Europe.” But the die was cast. The Churches
Militant of the Balkans (that sounded better than gun-
limbers) had begun to move towards Constantinople
amidst the incantations of their hirsute Popes. The men
of the Black Mountain left their grapes and sheep and
bees : forty thousand of them swarmed down to the lake
of Scutari, but failed to take the city.

" It is our right and duty,” said King Nikola, “ to
annex the homes of our ancestors, and to assemble round
their graves ; for that, it would be a joy for us to die.”

A thousand men did die, in brave encoxmters. The
Morning Post of November the i6th described a typical
scene :

“ The Commandant of the Dulcigno battalion, seeing
his men hesitate for a moment imder the Turkish fire,
sprang forward, snatched a rifle from the hand of a dead
man, and began to fire like a common soldier. The ex-
ample of their leader put fresh courage into the Montene-
grins, who dashed forward and put to flight the head of the
Turkish column, which had just reached the brow of the
hUl. The gallant Commander, however, paid for his
heroism with his life. A piece of bursting shell struck him
in the chest, and he was carried by his men to the rear
and laid on the ground close to the colours of the bat-
talion. The Chaplain gave the dying man benediction.
Then he snatched up a rifle, dashed forward, and ciied
to the soldiers, waving above his head the cross which

GOLDEN HORN

8o

hung at his breast, Forward, sons of the Chornahora ! In
defence of the Cross and for the glory of King Nikola !

“ The priest, brandishing his cross like a banner, had
reached the firing line, when a fresh and more furious
volley came from the Turkish column. He stood alone
among the recumbent soldiers, who continued their fire
without interruption, stretched on their chests. Then he
began to chant the sacred hymn God against tlu Infidels, Be-
neath his calm and even tones could be distinguished the
fierce note of battle. He had reached the lines which,
translated into English, run ; Tribulations shall not avail
to bend the Army of the Lord ! when his voice suddenly died
away j he waved his arms above his head and fell on his
face, a bullet through his heart.”

* * * *

While that priest was dying, I was attending autumn
manoeuvres on the great plains near Delhi ; and, as Adju-
tant of my regiment, followed the news from the Balkans
with professional interest.

Strategically, Scutari was important. Austria was deter-
mined that Montenegro should not possess it, so it was
promised to Albania, promoted to nationhood for that
purpose. Behind Albania stood Austria ; behind Austria,
Italy and Germany. On the other side was Montenegro,
supported by Servia. Behind Servia was Russia ; behind
Russia, France, and probably England. This miserable
overgrown village of mud houses might have become
the stumbling-block of Europe in 1912 as did the bodies
of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in 1914. The
nations were in their harness, waiting but the hour and
the sign to begin their larger sacrifice.

Rumours of these combinations reached us in India

VULTURES OF CHRISTENDOM 8l

during this year and the next, and we prepared ourselves
for Armageddon by sweeping like whirlwinds over the
plain in the belief that the cavalry spirit could win
battles, and by tilting against spring dummies in prepara-
tion for the time when Bengal Lancers should break their
shafts against German Uhlans. But in my regiment,
composed entirely of Muhammedans, there was great
sympathy with the Turks. I opened a subscription
for the funds of the Red Crescent, little thinking I was
soon to be in a Turkish hospital myself, sick, penniless,
lousy.

One night, reading a batch of French newspapers in
my little camp-bed by the light of a hurricane lamp, I
came across some articles by Pierre Loti^ which impressed
me profoundly :

I see a picture in a newspaper of the Four Allied
Kings, on horseback, advancing in the name of Christ,”
he wrote : First comes Ferdinand of Bulgaria, who has
made the cleverest use of the Cross. His vulture profile is
well known, and the savage glitter of his little eyes, like
those of a tapir. Behind him comes thin and ugly Petar
Karageorgevitch, who gained his throne by the horrible
assassination of King Alexander and his wife : it is notori-
ous also that he is the father of a precocious criminal, who
while still a child assuaged his lust for murder upon a
servant.^ Then there is the practical Kinglet of Monte-
negro, with his thoughts on the Stock Exchange. . . . Look
at this holy trio of the Chevaliers of Jesus ! In the back-
ground is the King of Greece, who seems shocked and
surprised to ride in such company.

1 Republished in Turquie Agonisante.

* Little Prince George Karageorge had kicked his valet while the latter
was pulling off his long boots, causing his servant’s death as the result
of injuries to the abdomen. Loti exaggerated in accusing him of murder.

Fh

82

GOLDEN HORN

“ Turkish atrocities ! This clicM of the Crusaders (pub-
lished everywhere with the help of the banknotes of the
BalVan Committee in London) continues to be repro-
duced in the French Press. . . . Alas, it may be true. . . .
But the Crusaders ! When will their crimes be known ?
Wounded Turkish officers and soldiers have been found
without nose, lips, or eyelids, all of them having been
cut off with scissors. ... I am nearing the end of my
life on earth. I desire and fear nothing, but as long as
I can make myself heard it is my duty to speak the
truth. Down with wars of conquest ! Shame on these
slaughters 1

“ From Turkey we French have taken Algeria, Tunis,
Morocco. The English have robbed her of Egypt. Poor,
beautiful, meretricious Italy, thinking she was marching
to glory, turned Tripolitania into a charnel house. We lay
our heavy and disdainful hands upon these conquered
coxmtiies ] the least of our little bureaucrats treats every
Moslem as a slave. From these believers we have taken,
little by little, their trust in prayer ; and upon these
dreamers we have imposed our futile excitements, our
anger, our speed, our alcohol, our intrigues, our iron
civilisation ; unrest follows us everywhere, together with
ambition and despair.

“ The Turks are misunderstood by Westerners who have
never set foot in this country. I do not believe there is a
race of men more thoroughly good, loyal, kind. I must
except, alas, some who have been brought up in our
schools and gangrened in our boulevards : they become
officials afterwards : I leave them aside. But the people,
the real people, the jpetits bourgeois^ the peasants — ^what
better men could you find ? Ask those of us who have lived
in the East which they prefer : Tmks, or Bulgarians, or

VULTURES OF CHRISTENDOM 83

Serbs, or any other Levantine Christians, and I know
what the answer will be !

“ The kindness of Turks for animals might be an ex-
ample to us all. With what cheerfulness the dogs of Con-
stantinople were nourished for centuries ! How often some
Turk would come down into the street to cover their
puppies with a rug when it rained ! And the day when
the Municipal Council, composed chiefly of Armenians
decreed their destruction in the atrocious way the world
knows, ^ there were battles in every quarter of the city,
indeed almost a revolution to defend the dogs. As to cats,
they never get out of the way of the inhabitants, knowing
that passers by will leave them in peace. And at Broussa,
in one of the adorable comers of that old Moslem city,
there is a hospital for old or wounded storks who have not
been able to escape the winter. Some of them are swathed
in bandages, others have their legs in splints. When I
visited the place, there was a senile owl there, who lived
on charity, like the storks. .

Kerre Loti was my literary hero, but he and his sick
owl belonged to another age : the new era was being
ushered in by the booming of the rival artilleries of Eirupp
and Creusot.

* * * *

1 There was a saying in Constantinople that when the Turk should
rid himself of the race of dogs that had followed his nomad ancestors from
the steppes of Central Asia, the city would cease to be Turkish. At the
beginning of the nineteenth century, under Mahmoud the Reformer, an
attempt was made to abolish them. They were taken to an island, but
promptly swam back. Nearly a himdred years later, a ^merchant offered to
put them all in a lethal chamber, intending to turn their skins into gloves,
but even Abdul the Damned rejected this proposal. Under the Young
Turk r6gimc, however, it was felt that something should be done to crea-
tures who merely lay in the sun, contemptuous of Progress, so they were
collected in rubbish carts, with closed iron lids, and taken to the island of
Oxyea, eight miles from Constantinople, where there was no water. Daily
the lighter brought new dogs and those already on the island killed them in
order to drink their blood. Eventually all died of thirst.

GOLDEN HORN

84

In the autumn of 1912 Constantinople was thronged
with smart young officers dashing about in German
motor cars, and heavily-sashed yokels marching hand-in-
hand to the recruiting offices, to the music of fife and
drum. “We want war,” cried a gang of cadets, sur-
rounding the carriage of Nazim Pasha, the Commander-
in-Chief. “No one wants peace!” he answered, and was
cheered to the echo. (Next year he was murdered by a
simila r gang of enthusiasts.)

Taalat Bey, who had lately been Minister of the In-
terior, enlisted as a private soldier and refused all offers
of promotion. Twelve thousand men a day were being
sent into Adrianople. The chain of forts built by
von der Goltz Pasha between Adrianople and Kirk
Kilisse was guaranteed (by the Germans) to withstand a
three-months’ siege. Behind it, the Turks had 150,000
men ready to smash their way through to Nish, Sofia,
Belgrade. Military critics in Europe thought that the
Turks would win. So did the Turks.

On October the 17th, the Sublime Porte gave passports
to the Bulgarian and Servian Ministers. The Turks had
turned to bay ; the lean years of humiliation were over :
the race that had ruled thirty nations from the Adriatic
to the Persian Gulf would prove once again that it was
the predominant factor in the Balkans, and would make
the Slav and the giaour feel the kick of the horse of Islam.

In Sofia there were rejoicings also : the harvest was
abandoned : October the i8th was market day : recruits
and reservists marched into the capital vdth their rifles
garlanded : a concourse of peasants, in sheepskins and
white woollen breeches, stood bareheaded in the sunlight
of Cathedral Squtirc listening to the deep bells ringing :

VULTURES OF CHRISTENDOM 85

Queen Eleonore drove by in her motor car, entered the
Cathedral, took her place at the steps of the sanctuary,
surrounded by Ministers of State.

“ God calls us to help our brethren,” said die preacher,
“ and He will aid us now that we answer the call. Peace-
ful methods have failed ; we must obtain justice by the
sword.” The mitred Metropolitan, robed in cloth of gold
and hedged by glittering ikons, held up a crucifix before
the Queen, who seemed pale and distraught.

In his Palace, round which jackdaws screamed, Eling
Ferdinand composed one of his magnificent manifestoes :

“ Bulgarians,” he wrote, “ in the course of my reign of
five and twenty years, devoting myself to the peaceful
work of civilisation, I have always striven for the progress,
the happiness, and the glory of Bulgaria ; and my wish
was to see the Bulgarian nation making continual ad-
vances in the direction of peace. But Providence has de-
cided otherwise. Even at this day, thirty-five years after
our liberation, our brethren in blood and religion have
not been fortunate enough to secure for themselves a life
that is endurable and fit for man. The Bulgarian nation
has remembered the prophetic words of the Czar Libera-
tor, that the Holy Work must be carried on to the end.
Our love of peace is exhausted. In order to assist the
Christian people of Turkey, no other means are left to us
but to draw the sword. In this war of the Gross against
the Crescent, of freedom against tyranny, we shall have
the sympathy of all who love justice and progress. For-
ward ! May God be with us ! ”

And God was with the Bulgarians, at first.

Two columns of their Army passed eastward of the
Turkish defences at Adrianople and fell on the extreme
right of the enemy’s front at Kirk Kilisse (the terminus

GOLDEN HORN

86

of a branch line of the Sofia-Constantinople railway)
capturing the outer defences of that village in despite of
von der Goltz’s guarantees.

On the night of October the 23rd, the Bulgarians ad-
vanced to the final assault. Seven times their attack was
repulsed ; but the brilliant crescent moon that brooded
over the Turkish trenches proved a traitress to Islam, for
the eighth attack swept over the defenders like a tidal
wave. By eleven o’clock, sixty thousand Turks were in
full retreat.

Casualties would have been greater on both sides if the
Turks had had shells for their girns and food for their
bellies : having neither, they fought with pardonable lack
of enthusiasm. The retreat, however, was not skilfully ex-
ploited by the Bulgarian cavalry : seventy guns were cap-
tured and two thousand prisoners, but the Turks were
allowed to withdraw some of their broken divisions more
or less intact.

Early in the morning of Tuesday, October the 29th, the
long buffalo-trains of the Crusaders’ seige artillery arrived
on the ridges facing Lule Burgas, and opened fire. The
Turkish regular troops fought with courage, in spite of
their hunger, but the reservists, ill-led, ill-fed, ill-shod, un-
disciplined, shivering at the change from sunny Asia to
the bleak plains of Thrace, were not inclined to face the
bayonets of the Bulgarians. By Wednesday night the left
of their position was in retreat. The right stiU held, and a
terrific counter-attack developed, which might have al-
tered the issue of the day and perhaps the whole course of
the war had the Turks been in better heart, for the Bul-
garians would have been in an awkward position in case
of defeat, with the garrison of Adrianople m their rear.
But heroism was not enough : the Bulgarians were also

VULTURES OF CHRISTENDOM 87

brave. They massed their artillery on their threatened
left flank, and on October the 30th they subjected the
Turks (now cartridge-less and living on raw maize picked
from the fields) to a bombardment severer than any which
human nerves had yet endured.

November the ist dawned dear and bright. Fox-hunting
had begun in England, and a better sport for the Bul-
garians. The Turkish reservists again began to give way :
their officers fired on them, but failed to hold them. At
three o’dock in the morning a torrential downpour burst
above the battle.

When the sun rose on a flooded countryside on Novem-
ber the 2nd, the Turkish right flank yielded. The centre
had already retreated and the cavalry on the left flank
had been able to oppose only their small German carbines
to the rifles of the opposing infantry and the shrapnel
of the victorious guns. A trumpeter had sounded the
“ Mount.” Once in saddle, several squadrons had gal-
loped to the rear, spreading panic where there was already
confusion.

To the east of Lule Burgas, the single Roman road,
with gaps in its huge coping stones, was packed with
stumbling horses, bullock-carts carrying men, women,
and children from their farms, staff officers looking for
their Generals, Colonels who had lost their regiments,
hordes of sick and starving men without discipline or
direction dragging themselves towards a distant hope of
shelter. It was a rout : perhaps the worst in history. The
pale sun set, and the night was bitterly cold. The wounded
froze in the mud by the roadside, neglected and trampled
upon in the darkness, while half-demented fugitives
jostled each other for a foothold on the bridges leading to
Constantinople.

GOLDEN HORN

88

And now another enemy joined in the attack : invisible,
and deadlier than the Bulgarians. Men stiffened, stumbled
forwards, lay on the ground arching themselves backwards
as they retched up a poison that had come from Asia.
In a few hours they were dead, and their bodies turned
blue.

When a soldier showed by his dragging gait that he
was likely to be stricken with cholera, his comrades
shunned him as unclean : medical service there was none :
everyone feared infection: the roadside as far as the
Chatalja Lines was strewn with victims, some crawling
along deliriously, others writhing immobilised.

Near the Headquarters Camp at Hadem Kui, behind
the Chatalja defences, an enclosure was established which
haunted the memory of those who saw it, for the sick of
all the surrounding country had dragged themselves to
it to die. There was no shelter for the afflicted in this
place, but they huddled closely together, deriving comfort
from the presence of their fellows. Some stood up and
prayed to Allah, some ran in circles, some gobbled mud
with their swollen lips, vomited, defaecated, cried until
they choked.

An officer, riding by, noticed a frenzied movement in
a heap of corpses, stacked criss-cross, like railway-
sleepers, awaiting the arrival of the over-worked burial-
carts. He ordered a stretcher-bearer to piiU out a man
who was still alive.

“ It is useless, Effendi,” was the answer : “ if he is not
already dead, he soon will be ! ” So saying, the orderly
sprayed the body with a strong solution of chloride of
lime, burning its eyes and skin.

This was the first modern war of masses.

VULTURES OF CHRISTENDOM 89

Abdul Hamid heard the news of the Turkish defeats,
in Salonika, and must have pondered sadly — for he was
a patriot — on the tangible results of democracy. But he
could do nothing at the Villa Allatini, except smoke his
wonderful cigarettes and comb his long-haired cats.

Almost all Turkey in Europe was now lost. The Servians
had taken Kumanovo and Uskub (the ancient capital of
Greater Servia whose loss the Servians had mourned for
more than five centuries) and Monastir. The Greeks had
occupied the iEgean Isles, joined Crete to Hellas ; and
they captured Salonika on November the 8th, a few days
ahead of the Servians and Bulgarians, who were also
racing for that prize.

Who would have Constantinople ? Could the Bulgarians
break through the Turkish defences ; and if so, what would
Russia say ? And Germany ? And Great Britain ? Was
the city to be internationalised ? The eagles of Europe
watched their prey from diplomatic eyries, and the
vultures gathered for their pickings.

The two big hotels of the capital were full of art-
dealers avid for the treasure of Byzantium, waiting for the
Turks to pack up and go. Was the Holy Grail in the
Sultan’s seraglio ? Would the whitewash be removed from
the frescoes in Aya Sophia? No-one knew what shards
in the city’s rubble might once have been the drinking
cups of Kings and what glorious chalices had travelled
away in the crimsoned ships of the Crusaders ; what
manuscripts existed in the ancient libraries and what
books had gone to boil the kettles of the Janissaries.
Where was the chris-elephantine statue of Athena, trans-
ported from the Parthenon to enrich New Rome ? And
where St. Luke’s portrait of Christ, brought back by the
Empress Eudoxia from her pilgrimage to Jerusalem?

go GOLDEN HORN

Where the Phidian Apollo and the statues of Socrates
and Sappho that had adorned the Hippodrome of
Byzantium? Where the relics of the Redemption — ^the
feather from the wing of the Angel of the Annunciation,
the incorruptible robe of the Virgin, the golden vessels
of the Magi, the swaddling clothes, the alabaster box of
Mary Magdelene, and the table of the Last Supper —
objects as famous as the shrine of the Divine W^isdom
itself throughout early Christendom ? The loot of Pekin
had made a fortune for some of the servants of European
cxilture : Constantinople with its ghosts and memories
might do the same. That there were live ghosts in the
streets who extended skeleton hands, begging for bread,
meant nothing to them except that there was danger of
infection from the plague that lay on the battle lines not
twenty miles away. Of another peril that brooded over
Europe they were equally careless. WTiy worry about
broken treaties and mounting armaments ? A la guerre
comme d la guerre I Here there was cheap red caviare from
Odessa and the delectable lobsters of the Marmora.

CHAPTER IV

THE DAY OF WRATH

That the Crusaders did not reach the Golden Horn
was due partly to the strong knees of the Turks and
partly to the resisting power of machine-guns against
shrinking flesh. The first Balkan War taught Europe
several lessons, of which this was one. Another was that
the French artillery was probably better than the German.

As Bulgaria had walked into Macedonia under the
barrage of “ seventy-fives ” so might France recover her
lost provinces. She increased her period of service with
the colours to three years at a cost of ;£'20, 000,000 ;
Germany replied by spending ;^6o,ooo,ooo on fortifica-
tions and raising her annual levy of recruits to 700,000.
All the Great Powers intensified their naval and military
preparations while prating of peace. Diplomats played
their solemn game of see-sawin an atmosphere of respectful
admiration.

The Turks hurried reinforcements firom Asia into the
Ghataija Lines : took ranges, filled gun-limbers, fed troops.
When the Bulgarian attack developed on November the
17th, it was stoutly resisted along the whole line. Two
days later the Bulgarians retired.

Nazim Pasha now invited General SavofF, his opponent,
to conclude an armistice. Hostilities ceased for both sides
were exhausted. Adrianople, however, remained besieged
by the Bulgarians. On December the i6th, delegates of
the belligerents met in London, while Sir Edward Grey
presided over a parallel Conference of Ambassadors to

GOLDEN HORN

92

discuss the new situation in the Balkans. There was no
talk now of maintaining the status quo ante : “ The

Ottoman Army will never re-enter Adrianople,” said
Mr. Asquith. He was wrong : it did so six months later.

On January the 17th, 1913, the Great Powers sent a
note to the Sublime Porte recommending the cession of
Adrianople, and suggesting that the question of the .(Egean
Islands should be the subject of future discussion.

To the Greybeards at the Sublime Porte, when they
discussed this communiqui, there seemed no alternative to
acceptance, for as long as the Balkan Alliance held to-
gether there was no means of raising the siege. Yet
acceptance was bitter, for Adrianople was a holy place of
Islam, and had once been the Turkish capital. The Young
Turks did not agree to the surrender, and saw an oppor-
tunity to oust the Greybeards. As soon as the city had
been abandoned to the infidels they intended to swim to
power on the crest of a wave of popular indignation.

Too soon, they thought that their moment had come.
On January the 26th, Enver Bey appeared at the gate of
the Sublime Porte with two hundred followers, demanding
admittance. An officer told him to wait. But Enver was
in no mood to dally on doorsteps, and his adversary was
shot down. Hearing an uproar, the Commander-in-
Chief came out of the Council Chamber and faced the
Young Turks with a cigarette in his mouth and his hands
in his pockets.

“ What do you want ? ” he asked cheerfully enough.

The reply was another shot : Nazim fell mortally
wounded, saying “ The dogs have done for me ! ”

They had done for him, and finished also with France
and England. Had that shot not been fired, Turkey might
have remained neutral in 1914, for the Germans would

THE DAY OF WRATH 93

not have succeeded in their policy of penetration : the
war would have been shortened by two years : the
Dardanelles, Palestine, ’Iraq would not have been watered
with British blood. . .

Stepping over Nazim’s body, Enver and Tazdat entered
the Council Chamber, forced the Grand Vizier to resign,
and made themselves masters of the country. But their
plan had succeeded too quickly : the wave of enthusiasm
left them high and dry, dictators no doubt, but with the
surrender of Adrianople as yet uncovenanted, so that they
were under the necessity of either continuing a hopeless
contest or making an unpopular peace.

Bulgaria refused to bargain with them, ended the
armistice in February, captured Adrianople in March.
During the same month, the Greeks took Janina and
occupied Samos. In April, King Nikola entered Scutari.
The Committee had done no better than the Greybeards,
and was compelled to arrange another armistice. By
the terms of the subsequent peace (May the 30th)
Turkey retained nothing in Europe except the small
hinterland to Constantinople known as the Enos-Midia
line.

On the surface of the Near East there was now com-
parative calm for a few months, but swift and resistless
undercurrents ran in the turbid depths of Balkan
intrigue.

Servia wanted Salonika. So did Greece, who held it.
So did Bulgaria, who claimed it as the birthplace of her
patron saints. Saints Cyril and Methodius, and the site of
her first printing press. But, said the Greeks, England
docs not claim the Dalmatian coast because of St.
George, nor France Amsterdam because French books
were printed there. Several other quarrels, of similar

94. GOLDEN HORN

importance, led Ferdinand to plan a sudden attack on his
Allies. He thought Austria would support him, but was
mistak en, as he SO often was, in spite of his cleverness.
Old Francis Joseph feared a Slav Confederation with
Russia in Constantinople and refused to help Bulgaria
for that reason. He hoped that the Crusaders would
squabble amongst themselves until he could crush his
bumptious little neighbour Servia, who was also a Slav
nation.

On June the 29th, Bulgarian troops raided a Servian
outpost. Two days later they were heavily defeated. The
Greeks also attacked Bulgaria, and won a smashing
victory. ThenRoumania carved out for herself a handsome
slice of the Black Sea littoral. The Turks, meanwhile,
imder Enver Bey, retook Adrianople without a shot being
fired.

Ferdinand had been too foxy by half. A month after
his attack, he was compelled to sue for peace ; and in
August the Treaty of Bukharest was signed, leaving
Bulgaria destitute, disillusioned, a prey to Turkey and the
Central Powers, after a sacrifice of 50,000 men, to add to
the 100,000 she had lost in the first war. Servia, Greece,
and Montenegro had lost 60,000, 50,000, and 10,000 men
respectively ; but they had doubled their territories.
Turkey had halved hers, and lost perhaps 200,000 men.
As to Roumania, she had added to herself 250,000 Bulgars
with a minimum of risk and trouble. But neither gains
nor losses were permanent. Within a year all was in the
melting-pot.

THE DAY OF WRATH 95

In Belgrade, in the spring of 1914, three boys were
being trained by secret and bloodthirsty men.

Gavrilo Princep was a pale, slightly-built youth with
protruding underlip, receding forehead, and deep-set,
burning eyes set in an exceptionally long head. He had
been a failure at school, and when he had sought admission
to a Servian brigand band he had been rejected with
contumely on account of his physique. Hence a complex,
whose outward signs were a beard and an air of bravado.
Nejelko Gabrinovitch was sturdier, less intdlectual,
perhaps warmer-hearted. Trifko Grabez was black-eyed
and dark as a gypsy : with his pert, complacent demean-
oxir he was the most self-possessed of the conspirators.

All three were tainted with tuberculosis and under
twenty years of age. Their heroes were the Servian patriot
of long ago, Obelic, who had assassinated Sultan Moiuad
to avenge the defeat of Kossovo on St. Vitus’s Day, June
the 28th, 1389, and a certain Bhogdan Zherajitch who
in 1910 had fired at the Governor of Bosnia-Herzegovina,
but missed, and immediately turned the revolver on
himself.

“ O Bosnia, orphan before the gods, hast thou no
patriots in thy land to-day ? ” sang the gusli playere
of Belgrade. Princep and Gabrinovitch had already
answered the question in their minds. They had fire-
quented Zherajitch’s grave in Serajevo ; had stolen
flowers from other graves to decorate it ; had sworn on
his tomb to die as he did, or better. Both knew that
disease had marked them for an early death : thdr
spes phthiska was the hope of a grand political murder and
martyrdom.

Such promising material was not, of coiirse, neglected
by the Black Hand of Servia. Milan Giganovitch, who was

GOLDEN HORN

96

ostensibly an employee on the Servian railways, but
privately a henchman of the society who had so bloodily
enthroned the reigning dynasty, met Cabrinovitch one
evening in the early spring of 1914, shortly after the latter
had received a newspaper cutting stating that the
Archduke Franz Ferdinand was to visit Serajevo on June
the 28th.

It was an insult, said Giganovitch, that this Austrian
interloper should choose St. Vitus’s Day to visit Serajevo,
the very day when every Serb wished to celebrate the
freedom that his brethren had gained by the capture of
Uskub in 1912. Moreover, the Austrians intended to hold
manoeuvres on the Servian frontier : the threat and the
taunt were calculated, and should be avenged by death.

Cabrinovitch agreed. Servia, he said, must break the
power of Austria-Hungary. With Russia helping her, she
could do it. Bosnia belonged to the Slavs, and to the
Orthodox Rite. Austria-Hungary was Roman Catholic,
and the Archduke almost a Jesuit. Gould they root out
that religion and that dynasty from the soil that belonged
to Slavdom ? Giganovitch thought they could. He knew
a way.

The plot was hatched in the squalid cafrs of Belgrade —
the Green Garland, the Oak Wreath, the Little Goldfish —
where many Bosnian students were to be found with empty
pockets and full heads. Princep and Grabez were intro-
duced to Giganovitch, and the latter, being the most
presentable, was taken to see a Major Tankositch, of
the Servian Army, who would be able, Giganovitch
said, to supply them with whatever lethal weapons they
required.

Exactly what happened at this interview will never be
known, for the participants are dead. It is alleged that as

THE DAY OF WRATH 97

long ago as the summer of 1913 the Archduke had been
condemned to death at a meeting of pseudo-Masons in
Toulouse ; that Tankositch was a prominent officer of
the Grand Orient ; that in planning the murder he
enlisted the help of the regicide, Colonel Dimitrevitch of
the Servian Intelligence Corps ; and that before the
details were finally settled an agent of the Black Hand was
sent on a visit to various European capitals to warn the
Lodges of the Grand Orient of the deed contemplated at
Serajevo.

Certain it is that when the three boys finally left
Belgrade for Serajevo they felt themselves to be not
murderers but members of a high political mission whose
failure would have brought them deep shame. “ I threw
the bomb for fear of Tankositch,” said Cabrinovitch at
his trial, “ there was no knowing that he might not come
to Serajevo himself.” It seems equally certain, however,
that the Servian Government was not directly concerned
in the conspiracy, however lax it may have been in
tolerating a dangerous agitation. M. Pasitch,who was then
Prime Minister, would not have approved of a murder
which involved Servia in grave troubles at a time when
her King had just abdicated, when her Army was dis-
organised, and when her people were in the midst of an
electoral contest.

Wherever the chief blame lies (whether on the whole
youth of Bosnia, or on individuals who used the ardent
idealism of youth to instigate a crime that they dared
not themselves commit) Major Tankositch was not
innocent, for he procured bombs and revolvers for his
recruits^ and gave them an intensive course of training

^ These weapons bore the marks of the Servian State Arsenal, but they
may not have come directly from there, for arms of all kinds were readily
obtainable in Belgrade.

Gh

GOLDEN HORN

98

in their use, lasting ten days. When all was ready, the boys
were smuggled across the frontier by a carefully-planned
route, with the cognisance of Servian frontier ofBcials,
and were met at Serajevo by a well-known agent of the
Black Hand.

This man, Danilo Hitch, ^ an ex-schoolmaster of anar-
chist tendencies, arranged where the conspirators should
stand when the Archduke passed, kept their bombs and
revolvers in hiding for them, and gave them each a capsule
of cyanide of potassium, so that they could commit suicide
when the murder was accomplished, thereby removing all
danger of implicating their confederates. Hitch left nothing
to chance : he even engaged three extra murderers, in
case those sent to him from Serajevo should miss their
aim or fail in their resolve.

The Axchduke Franz Ferdinand and his morganatic
wife, the Duchess of Hohenberg, had arrived at the
watering place of Hidze, six miles from Serajevo, on
Thursday, June the 25th. The Archduke attended
manoeuvres on Friday and Saturday. On Sunday
morning the pious and devoted couple heard Mass at
Hidze, and left at 10 o’clock in an open car for their fatal
visit

They had been warned that bombs might be thrown,
and the Duchess had had many anxious forebodings ;
none the less, they set out in good spirits. It was a brilliant
day, with hot sun. The Duchess was all in wliite, save for
a flowered belt. The Archduke wore his usual light tunic,
dark overalls, and a green-feathered helmet. He sat on

1 He and other accomplices were condemned to death and duly banged.
Princep, Cabrinovitch and Grabez, being under age, were sentenced
to twenty years* penal servitude : they all died in prison before the end of
the war.

THE DAY OF WRATH 99

the left, with the Duchess on his right : facing them was
General Potiorek, the Governor of Bosnia-Herzegovina,
and by the chauffeur sat Count Harrach, the owner of
the car.

Serajevo was gaily decorated for the arrival of the
Royal and Imperial Party, and a considerable crowd had
collected on the Quai d’ Appel, running parallel to the
River Miljacka, along which the procession was to pass on
its way to the Town Hall. Noticing the enthusiasm of the
spectators, Franz Ferdinand told his chauffeur to drive
more slowly. He little knew, when he gave these orders,
that three assassins waited for him near the Austro-
Hungarian Bank (these were the substitutes recruited by
Hitch) while opposite them, on the river side of the Quai
d’Appd, Cabrinovitch stood ready with his bombs.
Princep and Grabez were stationed a little further on,
near the Pont Latin, only a short way from the Town
Hall.

General Potiorek was just pointing out to the Archduke
the new barracks of the 15th Corps, on their left, when
from the embankment, on their right, a small object was
thrown. It passed behind the Duchess and fell on the hood
of the car. Next instant it dropped, sizzling, from the hood
and exploded almost under the wheels of the next car but
one.

The procession halted, and the Archduke sent back to
enquire what had happened : he was informed that an
aide-de-camp and several spectators had been slightly
wounded. According to some accounts the Duchess had
also been grazed in the neck : she insisted, however, on
remaining by her husband’s side. The procession was
reformed, and traversed the few hundred yards to the
Town Hall at a rapid pace

100 GOLDEN HORN

Meanwhile Cabrinovitch had been arrested. Those
standing near him had attempted to seize him : he had at
first eluded them, and had jumped into the Miljacka ; but
a spectator had followed him into the river and dragged
him out.

Princep saw him being led away by the police and had
wanted to shoot him (as he afterwards confessed) in order
that he should not give his comrades away, but had
failed to reach him owing to the crowd. Then he had
turned his attention to the Archduke’s car, but it had
flashed by too quickly to enable him to take aim. Grabez
deserted ; so did the three substitutes ; Princep was now
alone, but more than ever determined to leave his mark
on history.

The Archduke spoke severely to the authorities on his
arrival at the Town Hall. “ Mr. Mayor,” he said, “ I
come here on a friendly visit and bombs are thrown at
me. It is outrageous ! Now you may speak.”

After the address, and a reception, it had been planned
that the Archduke should drive to the Museum through
the main street of the town. Although Potiorek declared
that there was now no danger (“ Do you think Serajevo
is full of assassins ? ” he asked Count Harrach, who
declared that the city wsis unsafe) it was decided to go by
a shorter route to the Museum, which also gave an oppor-
tunity for the Archduke to enquire after his wounded
aide-de-camp before returning to Ilidze. The Duchess,
in spite of remonstrances, still kept to her resolve to remain
with the Archduke.

The order of the cars was the same as before — Police,
Royalties, aides-de-camp — but Count Harrach, instead
of sitting by the chauffeur of the Archduke’s car, stood on
the left-hand running-board in order to shield Franz

THE DAY OF WRATH lOI

Ferdinand with his body in the event of another attempt
on his life.

The return journey lay straight along the Quai d’ Appel,
but the leading car, containing the Chief - of Police,
turned right near the Pont Latin, making for the main
thoroughfare of Serajevo instead of going straight on.
Why this occurred has never been cleared up (it is extra-
ordinary that the Chief of Police should not have ex-
plained the way to his chauffeur) but it is understandable
that the Archduke’s car, driven by a man who did not
know the city, should have followed the lead of the police.
Noticing the mistake. General Potiorek, sitting with
his back to the driver, turned round and ordered
him to reverse just as he was rounding the bend.
There was a moment, therefore, when the car was at a
standstill.

But for this, little Gavrilo Princep on the pavement
comer would never have pulled the trigger that mobilised
twenty-five million men.

The Archduke, Princep had thought, would certainly
return by the Quai d’ Appel, so he stood at the vantage
point of the Pont Latin, where his hero Zherajitch had
made his attempt in 1908. But a suspicious stranger
had tried to converse with him, and suspecting him
of being a spy, he had crossed the road (did Fate guide
his steps ?) and had taken up his position on the pave-
ment where a turning opened into the main thorough-
fare.

Would he be able to kill Franz Ferdinand, he wondered,
with a single flying shot ? Probably there would be no
time for more, and he had had very little training in the
use of firearms. He waited, with forefinger trembling on
his Browning pistol.

102

OOLDEN HORN

And now, miraculously, here was the Archduke before
him, unguarded, unconcerned, the green feathers of his
hat not two yards away. Franz Ferdinand’s time had
come : it was destiny : his car had taken a wrong turning :
his aide-de-camp was on the wrong side : the murderer
had a sitting target

Princep fired, and saw that he had hit his mark, though
rather high.

Someone snatched at his hand, but he was able to fire
once again, at Potiorek this time, but as he did so a white
figure jumped up as if to shield the Archduke, and re-
ceived the bullet in her groin.

He was knocked down, swallowed his cyanide of
potassium, vomited it up again as he lay under trampling
feet.

* * * *

“ Back ! Back, you fool ! ” cried Potiorek to the be-
wildered chauffeur.

But no one yet knew the extent of the tragedy. At the
moment, Potiorek thought that this second attempt had
also failed, for the Archduke sat quite calmly, with the
Duchess beside him. Then the Duchess swayed down on
her knees. Had she fainted from excitement ?

“ Sophie, Sophie darling,” muttered the Archduke,
“ don’t die, for the sake of our children.”

Blood welled to his lips.

“ Are you hurt, sir ? Are you in pain ? ” asked Count
Harrach, bending over the victim he had been unable to
shield.

The reply came almost too low to hear : ” It is noth-
ing ! ” Twice Franz Ferdinand repeated these words,
each time more faintly.

THE DAY OF WRATH IO3

Within a few seconds the car had backed on to the
embankment, crossed the Pont Latin, reached the
Governor’s house. The Archduke and Duchess were
already unconscious when they were carried up-
stairs.

A bullet had severed Franz Ferdinand’s right jugular
vein and lodged in his spine. The Duchess was bleeding
internally from a wound in her abdomen. Within a
quarter of an hour they were both dead.

* * * *

While these dreadful events in Serajevo were occurring,
I must have been breakfasting in Chelsea — ^the late and
famishing morrow of one of the many fierce midnights of
an Indian Army subaltern home on leave.

In the afternoon I drove down to Brighton with a
friend, and it was while sipping dry sherry in the
Albion Hotel that I heard from a chance-met jour-
nalist of the murder of the Archduke — and cared not a
jot.

A few months before I had heard that an Arab thorough-
bred of mine in Bareilly had been bitten by a snake and
had died. That had brought the immanence of Siva the
Destroyer very close ; but the death of a foreign royalty
was merely an occasion for a glass of wine.

Very different was the eflfect of the news upon the
great ones of the earth. The Kaiser left his racing yacht by
fast destroyer and hurried to Berlin, cancelling a dinner-
party on the Hohenzollem, The French President left his
box at Longchamp where he had been watching Baron
Maurice de Rothschild’s SardanapaJe winning the Grand
Piix, and went to the Quai d’Orsay looking extremely
grave. Early on Monday morning the King of England

GOLDEN HORN

104

drove to the Austro-Hungarian Embassy to express his
condolences in person.

* * * *

“ Dogs, you are well aware that Franz Ferdinand would
have taught you to respect Austria ! ” wrote the Armee*
zeitung in Vienna : “ We soldiers know only one ven-
geance : to stamp on the serpents who hiss in Serajevo !”

“ Men and nations alike are dominated by the struggle
for existence,” said dapper Count Berchtold : he did not
often philosophise, but the murder of the Archduke was
not an abstraction : it was a heaven-sent opportunity to
crush Servia.

“ This sort of thing can’t go on any longer,” agreed
the man in the street ; and the old Emperor Franz
Joseph told his mistress, Frau Schratt, that hostilities on a
large scale were inevitable. “ Russia can’t swallow the
ultimatum. It will be a big war, and we’ll be lucky to
escape with a black eye.”

“ To hell with Servia ! ” proclaimed Mr. Horatio
Bottomley, startling England with his John Bull posters :
he was on the trail of a plot whose details may
have been wrong ; but there was fire beneath the
smoke.

The German Emperor consigned Servia to a like per-
dition. On July the 5th he took the irrevocable step of
promising German support to Austria. It was a fatal
pledge, and the direct cause of the War, however many
subsidiary reasons there may have been.

No doubt if we had known then what we know now
about the situation in the Near East, public opinion
might have counselled Servia to accept the Austrian
ultimatum. But war was in the womb of Fate : Europe

THE DAY OF WRATH IO5

had conceived it in her pride : better that it should be
bom now, rather than aborted to facilitate further
national concupiscences.

As King George said to the American Ambassador after
war was declared : “ My God, Mr. Page, what else could
we do ? ” Over the British Isles swept a wave of patriodc
Jfervour unknown since the days of Crecy ; and surged
round the Empire.

European complications made Russia’s opportunity :
“ C’est ma' guerre , said M. Isvolsky, with not unnatural
pride, seeing his way to the Golden Horn.

On July the 30th, the Russian Foreign Office tele-
graphed asking Great Britain to retain the two warships
building for Turkey : the message stated that this was a
matter of immense importance to Russia. Unfortunately
it was also a matter of immense importance to Turkey : on
those ships her hopes were centred : they had been built
out of pennies and halfpennies subscribed by the whole
population : when they were withheld the German Am-
bassador in Constantinople laughed in his sleeve : the
British Navy was stronger by two battle cruisers of the
latest type, but British influence in Turkey had received
a staggering blow. To make matters a little wone, we kept
the money as well as the ships.

On July the 27th, the Young Turks re-opened negotia-
tions for an offensive and defensive treaty of alliance with
Germany, which was signed at 4 p.m. on August the
2nd with the greatest secrecy. For three months more the
Sublime Porte was able to lull the suspicions of the Allied
diplomats, while' mobilisation proceeded and the Goeben
and Breslau arrived off the Golden Horn, but never was
there any hope of keeping Turkey neutral after her
warships had been taken from her.

io6

GOLDEN HORN

Amongst the many and mighty and confusing con-
sequences of these events, a day arrived in November 1915
when an Observer in the Royal Flying Corps came
swooping down out of the skies of Mesopotamia in an
attempt to cut a telegraph line leading to Baghdad,

CHAPTER V

BAGHDAD

It was a long road that took me from the Thames to
the Tigris, twisting to and fro, through Braisne, Marseilles,
Ypres, a hospital in Wimereux, a nursing home in Lon-
don, and an aeroplane depot in Basra. While following
my humble duties, the march of world events was beyond
my ken : I knew little of the ambitions of rival parties in
the capitals of Europe, and less of the bait whereby
Baron Wangenheim hooked the Young Turks in August
and landed them in the Great War on October the 31st.
Nor, of course, did I know of the indecisions at home and
incompetence on the spot which rendered abortive Mr.
Winston Churchiirs skilful advocacy of the capture of the
Straits.

But it would be sacrilege to attempt the epic story of
Gallipoli in a few peiragraphs. Although we only gained a
precarious foothold on the Peninsula by the battle of the
Six Beaches, it was enough to induce Italy to enter the
war (she signed the secret treaty of London on April the
26th) while the attack at Suvla Bay, failure though it
was, maintained the uneasy calm of the Balkans until the
fall of the year. The Allies did not achieve their purpose,
but the agonies and exaltations of those days served to
contain armies that might otherwise have been employed
with deadly effect in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia, or
Suez Canal.

GOLDEN HORN

io8

When I reached Basra in July 1915, General Townshend
had driven the Turks from Amara and was proposing to
defeat them at Es-sinn ; this he did by a bold and bril-
liant move that nearly (but not quite) annihilated the
Turkish Army in Traq. For three months I followed the
fortunes of the glorious 6th Division up the Tigris ;
photographing the Turkish positions from our old aero-
plane, bombing the enemy transport, sketching the
route to Baghdad. And now, in the fine autumn weather,
I looked forward to seeing Townshend ride in triumph
into the city of the Caliphs, while I circled overhead in our
Maurice Farman “ Longhorn.”

There was need for some spectacular success in Meso-
potamia to offset the check at Gallipoli : Townshend was
the man to restore our waning prestige. When, therefore,
I rose from my bunk in a river barge an hour before
dawn on November the 13th, and swallowed a raw egg in
Worcester sauce before setting out on an attempt to cut
the Turkish telegraph lines west and north of Baghdad,
I felt that I was in the stream of great events.

That was my last meal as a free man for two and a
half years.

Unconscious of imp'ending fate, a glow of satisfaction
pervaded me. I had baked for several weeks in the T20,
a red-hot little Tigris tug, and I was sick of her smell, her
food, her convivial skipper. Now I would be quit of them ;
in a few days the battle of Ctesiphon would begin. When
it was over, I had been promised a course of training in
England to qualify me as a pilot in the Royal Flying
Corps.

The night sky looked good : it was clear, cool, strewn
with the ineffable stars that turn men’s souls to God in
the desert. I thanked Him for my luck : that He should

BAGHDAD

109

trouble about my affairs when there was so much else
to claim His attention, did not strike me as at all extra-
ordinary ; nor does it now : Life has thought for even the
meanest of her creatures : God knows when even one
sparrow falls to the ground.

The mission for which we had volunteered was to sever
the telegraph line to the west of Baghdad, which linked
that city with the Euphrates ; then, after refuelling, to
fly north, and cut communications with Mosul. But the
tank space on our “ Longhorn *’ was insufficient for the
oil and petrol required for the journey, and special
arrangements had to be made for carrying spare tins
with which we might refill, with luck, at our first halt.
With great luck, considering that we were to land in
hostile territory, imperfectly mapped.

However, the need for a bold stroke was urgent and
anything that would in any way tend to isolate Nur-ed-
din, the doddering old Turkish Commander-in-Chief
defending Baghdad, from Marshal von der Goltz Pasha,
the German veteran of victories who was hurrying down
from Mosul to relieve him, would help our forces to win
their desperate hazard.

Desperate the hazard was, as Townshend knew very
well, and as the men of Kut were soon to learn. But
Townshend was not his own master. He had advised
his superiors against the advance to Baghdad, and
he had been over-ruled. So, amongst other and more
important enterprises, he risked a valuable pilot, an
elderly aeroplane, and the present writer on a venture
whose success must edways have been doubtful.

Off we went, just as the sun rose in an amethystine mist
across the Tigris.

no GOLDEN HORN

We flew past the winter capital of the Parthian Kings,
where the Arch of Ctesiphon shadowed the Turkish
trenches (and where, seventeen centuries ago, the heresy
of the Manichees was first expounded) until we reached
the date-gardens where Scheherazade had entertained
Haroun-er-Raschid ; then we swung west, and I per-
ceived that the desert, instead of being empty, as I had
hoped, was swarming with horsemen and camels.

Men and beasts looked insignificant down there, like
toys on a brown linoleum nursery floor ; but they were
dangerous toys for us : I tried to find a place that was free
of them and yet near the telegraph line, and I thought
that I had succeeded when I told the pilot to land near
the site of Nimrod’s tomb.

Click ! I heard a slight cracking noise as we stopped
on the smooth, hard-baked surface, but I was busy at the
moment with wire-cutters and explosives, and I did not
know that that sound meant the breaking-up of my career
as an airman.

When I looked up, I saw that we had run into a tele-
graph post, and had splintered a wing. The pilot cursed
the rear wind which had caused the machine to escape
his control on landing ; and I cursed the pilot, but
silently, for this was no time for indulging in futile
recriminations.

The leading edge as weU as a main strut of our aero-
plane was broken. Nothing could be done, the pilot said.

I refused to believe it. Something could be done :
something must be done : yet hope sank from its high
zenith to a mind-defeating nadir : I looked round, gasp-
ing, and thinking (like an idiot, for meditation was out
of place) that this is how a gaffed fish must feel. Was I
in the same world as that of a minute ago ? Had God

BAGHDAD

III

deserted me ? I saw miles of yellow sand about me,
immense and magical and still ; and specks on the
horizon, growing larger.

With leaden heart, but light feet, I ran across to
another telegraph post, leaving the pilot to ascertain
whether by some miracle we might not be able to bring
the old ’bus to safety. But even as I left him, I knew that
there was no hope : the only thing that remained was to
destroy the telegraph line and take our chance with the
Arabs.

I tied a necklace of gun-cotton slabs round the post,
inserted a detonator into the necklace, and into the
detonator a pencil of fulminate of mercuiy to which a
powder fuse was attached. Lighting a match, I touched
it to the split end of the fuse, heard it sizzle, retreated
to a safe distance. Looking roimd, I saw that horsemen
were gallopiag towards us from the four quarters of the
desert. They would be too late. I felt happier in my
mind now that I had at least done something.

The post toppled over with a bang.

I returned with another necklace of gun-cotton to des-
troy the wires and insulators. While aflSxing this, I noticed
that the cavalry had retreated on hearing the noise of the
explosion, but that some sharpshooters had skirmished
closer under the cover of a fold in the ground, and were
now engaged on a one-sided battle. With spurts of sand
kicking up ziU round me, my fingers grew clumsy : it
took me an incredibly long time to strike a match and
put it to the fuse. But God had not deserted me : the
Arabs couldn’t hit a haystack : I still felt in some way
specially protected, although I ran back the hundred
yards to the aeroplane in my best time, which is about
twelve seconds.

II2

GOLDEN HORN

A hot fire was now being directed on to the machine
from ranges varying from fifty to five hundred yards. It
was not a pleasant situation. Seventy or eighty miles of
open plain lay between us and our camp, and we had no
conveyance but a broken aeroplane : our fate must be
either captivity or death : two of our comrades had
recently had their throats cut in similar circumstances.

“ Do you see that fellow in blue ? ” said the pilot,
pointing to a ferocious individual brandishing a curved
cutlass. “ I think he must be an officer by the way he’s
encouraging the otheirs. We’d better give ourselves up to
him when the time comes.”

I agreed, but doubted that the time would come.

Bang ! Baghdad was now definitely cut off from com-
munication with the Euphrates. That was something,
little enough, but something accomplished to earn the
long repose before us.

Silence, The rising wind swept sand in our faces. The
sky was of an incredible sapphire. Why was Nimrod
buried here ? Why didn’t the enemy shoot ? When would
this agony be over ?

I destroyed a few papers^ and then, more with the idea
of doing something than with any hope of getting away,
we started up the engine. Directly we did so, the Arabs,
who had been alarmed by the second explosion, again
opened fire on us, although they still hesitated to advance.
The situation was becoming ridiculous, so I climbed
on board and determined to try taxi-ing away. The
pilot, who knew the difficulties, did not accompany
me.

After disentangling the wires that had whipped round

^ We had instructions not to damage the aeroplane in the event of a
forced landing, for the Turks would have been unable to fly it, and it
would have come into otir hands again had we captured Baghdad.

BAGHDAD

1 13

the king-post, I took the control lever, opened out the
throttle, lurched off down wind. A troop of mounted
gendarmes came charging towards me. I tried to swerve,
but could not make the machine answer to her controls.
Exactly what happened next I have never been able to
recall, but I remember pulling the stick back frantically
and the aeroplane giving a hop and a cough as I floun-
dered into the middle of the cavalry. The engine had
stopped : I was surrounded.

A grey-headed Turkish gendarme spurred his frightened
horse up to me and held out his right hand. I grasped
it in surprise and relief ; and was still more amazed when
I found that the grip he gave me was an ancient and
honourable one, proving that even here in the desert
men are brothers.

I climbed off my perch and put myself under his pro-
tection, thinking of a night in India when I had become
Master of my Lodge. . . .

Should I, I sometimes ask myself, have died fighting ?
Dispassionately, I think that that would have been the
right thing to do. If one fights at all, one should not give
up to save one’s own skin (as I did) but only when the
death of others would be involved. But I confess that in
similar circumstances I would do the same again. I had
done what I could. The rules of war gave me a chance to
live, and I took advantage of them.

Surrendering is a sorry business : the best that can be
said for it is that it is sometimes common sense.

At that moment the gentleman in blue, whose appear-
ance we had previously discussed, appeared behind me :
I turned to speak to him : he swimg up his scimitar with
both hands and struck me a violent blow — with the flat
of it, I suppose — ^where neck joins shoulder. He did not

Ha

II4 GOLDEN HORN

draw blood, but I still carry the scar. To my astonish-
ment I saw that the aggressor, far from being an officer,
was a fanatic who wore no stitch of clothing upon his
hirsute and nobly proportioned person : either he had
been painted or tanned by the sun to the distant resem-
blance of an Ancient Briton. Life is full of surprises. He
looked so odd, dancing before me naked, that I began
to laugh ; but he hit me again, and knocked me out

I recovered my wits to find myself in a scrimmage of
Arabs who tore off my tunic and screamed at each other,
buffeting me from side to side. The old gendarme looked
on with kindly eyes. Arabs will be Arabs, he seemed to
think.

Soon I was clad in little but shirt and shorts, with two
exceptions to my semi-nakedness : my single eyeglass
was still in my eye and I still wore my wrist-watch :
perhaps my assailants did not know that they were both
detachable. Arabs go mad when looting.

My Flight CommEuider, who was captured at Gtesiphon
two days later, told me afterwards that when he was
being mauled, he had had three live bombs on his
aeroplane : he had tried to tell the Arabs of the danger of
touching them, but they paid not the slightest attention
to his warnings : suddenly there was a terrific explosion :
an arm eind a boot shot sky high : one of them had been
blown to bits, but the remainder went on looting as if
nothing had happened.

The number of our captors increased every minute and
the gendarmes had difficulty in protecting us. All round
us horsemen exulted, firing feux de joie. We were now
making slow progress towards a police post about a mile
distant, but at times the throng pressed round us so

BAGHDAD II5

fiercely that I doubted if we would reach our destination.

Presently, the police stopped and parleyed with some
Arab chiefs who had arrived to claim their share of
treasure trove. After an argument of which we could not
gather the drift, the gendarmes shrugged their shoulders
and appeared to accede to the Arabs’ demands. Several
of them seized the pilot and pulled his flying-coat over
his head.

That was a sickening moment, for I thought that I
was to be forced to witness something worse than dis-
embowelment, and then suffer the same fate myself :
my skin sweated cold : I hope that I shall never be so
extremely frightened again.

The pilot was pinioned : Arabs tore at his few clothes :
knives gleamed.

But he was not to be gelt, or even killed : they merely
wanted his flying-coat and did not know how to pull it
off without destroying it. Soon we were again being
hustled along towards the police post.

All this time the Maurice Farman had been neglected,
but looking back now I saw that some Arabs were stalking
it, while others had begun to fire in its direction. Al-
though, almost unbelievably, they missed it, I felt that
in the long nm it might be damaged beyond repair, so
I tried to explain to the gendarmes that it was unnecessary
to waste good lead on it, its potentiality for evil having
vanished with our surrender. The impression that I
conveyed, however, was that there was a third officer
in the machine, and a party went off to investigate.

During this diversion I tried to jump on to a fine roan
mare — easily the best horse in that assembly — ^whose
owner had left her to go towards the machine, but I
received another blow which sent me spinning. Again

GOLDEN HORN

Il6

the brotherly gendarme came to my rescue, and gave me
a cigarette. May he have bliss in the gardens of Paradise !

At last we reached the police post. As we entered
through a dark passage, my rescuer noticed the gleam of
radium at my wrist : with a smile he detached my watch :
I hope he has it still.

A heavy door clanged behind us : our captivity had
begun : what had gone before had been more like a
scrum at rugger, with ourselves zis the ball. We examined
our injuries and bruises, and I tried to dress the wounds on
the pilot’s head, with little success, for our guardians
could provide nothing but dirty water and dirtier rags.

We discussed our future, and agreed that our best plan
was to be recaptured in Baghdad on the taking of the
city. To feign sickness would not be difficult : I felt as if
every bone in my body was broken.

Meemwhile, clamour and confused noises without
seemed to refer to us. On asking what the people were
saying, we were informed in pantomime that the Arabs
wanted to take our heads to the Turkish Commander-
in-Chief at Suleiman Pak, whereas the gendarmes were
pointing out that there would be greater profit and
pleasure in taking us there alive. We agreed.

Considering things calmly, we knew that we were
lucky. Except for some cuts and bruises, and a bump the
size of an apple on the pilot’s head, we were safe and
sound. We had cut one telegraph line. Baghdad would be
taken soon. In a fortnight we would be flying again, and
what a funny story we would have to tell on our return !

Looking round that small mud room, it occurred to
me that this adventure was like being bom again. Was
this what a baby felt about the world awaiting its ken ?

BAGHDAD

117

People take it for granted that babies will enjoy life,
but it is an awe-inspiring responsibility to snare a soul
from the Universal Cosmic Consciousness and make it
pass from womb to tomb, from germ to worm. . . .

Our captors were convinced that we should feel de-
lighted with our situation. “ We saved you from the
Arabs,” we understood them to say, “ zmd now you
are safe until the war is over. You need do no more
work.”

Tea was brought us, sweet, weak tea in little glasses,
and we made grateful noises.

But quickly my mood changed. It was hard to be
appreciative for long in that little room, thinking of the
sun and air outside, and the Maurice Farman lying
wrecked in the desert. We should have been flying back
now if all had gone well : we should have photographed
new gun-emplacements : we should have reported laden
barges on their way to reinforce the Qusaibah position :
we should have told Townshend of the greatly-increased
strength of the enemy. Breakfast, bath and glory had
awaited us at Aziziah ... I wished I were dead, unreason-
ably, of course, since I had most definitely chosen to live.

“ It’s the thirteenth of the month,” groaned the
pilot, whose thoughts may have been similar to mine.
Indeed, I expect he felt worse than I did, with his wound
and regrets. It had been his misfortune rather than his
fault that we had crashed : no one could have foreseen
the rear wind and the imexpected smoothness of the
landing ground, but none the less his sorrow for lost
opportunities must have been bitter.

For a long time I sulked in silence, while the pilot,
with better manners, engaged the gendarmes in light
conversation conducted largely by gesture. About an hour

ii8

GOLDEN HORN

later (a Day of the Creation, it seemed to me) a diversion
interrupted my gloom, for the Turkish District Governor
arrived with two carriages to take us to Baghdad.

He told us that news of our descent and capture had
been sent to Baghdad by gallopers (not by telegram, I
noted parenthetically) and that the people were eagerly
awaiting our arrival. I said that I hoped they would not
be disappointed : he assured us with a significant smile
that they certainly would not.

“ Whatever happens,” he was kind enough to add,
“ I shall myself be responsible for your lives.”

His meaning became apparent a little later, for when
we approached the suburbs of Baghdad we found a
crowd awaiting us, armed with sticks and stones.

Word had gone out that there was to be a demonstra-
tion, and Baghdad allowed us to see the hysteria which
lurks in every city in times of crisis. Shops had put up
their shutters, markets were closed, streets were thronged,
every window held its vituperators. Our downfall was
an omen of British defeat : we were the most exciting
spectacle in Traq since the Germans had lost their
novelty.

Elderly merchants wagged their white beards and
cursed us as we passed : young men threw mud : women
pulled back their veils in scorn, and, putting out their
tongues, cried “ La, la, la,” in a curious note of derision :
boys brandished knives ; babies shook their little fists.
The hood of our carriage was tom off : we were both
spat upon : a man with a cudgel aimed a blow at the
pilot which narrowly missed him : another with a dagger
was dragged away to prevent him stabbing us — I can still
see his snarling face and hashish-haunted eyes. Our escort
could hardly force a way through the narrow streets :

BAGHDAD Iig

we sat trying to look dignified, which was difficult
because of the spitting.

Arrived at the river, a space was cleared round us, and
we were embarked with a great deal of fuss in a coracle
to take us to the Governor’s palace. Before leaving, I said
good-bye to the kindly gendarme who had helped a
brother in distress, and once more, across the wasted
years of captivity and the turmoil of my life to-day, I
gTcisp his hand in gratitude.

We were taken to hospitad in Baghdad and very decently
treated there. Two sentries, however, stood at our open
door day and night, watching our movements. If one of
us went to the privy, a sentry would follow, and peep
over the door if he remained there too long. This was not
only disagreeable to us (we were unused to the toilet
arrangements of the Turks, which involve the use of
water instead of paper) but also disconcerting, because
such watching made escape impossible. Outside the latrine
window stood some large earthenware jars such as had
sheltered Ali Baba and his men : given a few moments
of solitude we might have disappeared as they did.

The Governor of Baghdad, a pleasant Turk, speaking
perfect French, visited us with his staff one evening to
question us about the British dispositions. He brought
with him two bottles of whisky to help the conversation,
but although our tongues were loosened, he soon perceived
that the truth was not in us. When we were all rather
mellow, I suggested to him that the continual presence of
the sentries was irksome to our feelings as gentlemen.

He understood me well.

“ I am sorry that the soldiers disturb you,” he said,
“ and I sympathise with your desire for privacy. But I am

120

GOLDEN HORN

responsible for your safety, and I am afraid that you
might walk in your sleep after your harrowing experi-
ences, which seem to have affected your memories, by
the way. If you did walk in your sleep,” he added “ you
might fall out of the window.”

As the day grew near for the British attack we saw
many thousand Arabs being sent to Ctesiphon. They were
no conquering army, no freemen going to defend their
native land, but bands of slaves on their way to wounds
or death. Down to the river-bank, where they were
embarked on lighters, they were followed by their weeping
relatives. There was no pretence at heroism. They would
have escaped if they could, but their masters had tied
them together by fours : their right hands were lashed to
a wooden yoke while their left carried a rifle. Kanonen-
fatter was required for Ctesiphon, and down the Tigris
this pageant of dejected pacifists was compelled to go.

After the attack had begun, shiploads of wounded
returned to our hospital in pitiable condition. No
stretchers and few medicines or attendants were available :
even mattresses were deficient in number : the less serious
casualties lay huddled together on stinking straw, relying
on charity and the providence of Allah : the gravely
wounded often died before the doctors could attend to
them. I had seen our own wounded and prisoners after
Es-sinn in as bad a plight, but that I had witnessed in
hot blood, this in cold. Battles are very ugly when the
Captains and the Kings depart.

Never for a moment did we think that the attack on
Ctesiphon could fail. We knew that the odds were
against us, but we believed that Townshend would
achieve the impossible : that he did not do so was not his

BAGHDAD

I2I

fault nor the fault of the gallant men he led. While the
guns boomed down the Tigris and the fate of Baghdad
was poised in the balance I experienced alternations of
hope and anxiety which left me sleepless and a bundle of
nerves : I know now what a prisoner feels while the jury
is considering the verdict.

At six o’clock one morning we were awakened and told
that we must leave for Mosul immediately. By every means
in our power we delayed the start, thinking that our troops
might come at any moment. But the Turkish sergezint
who was in charge of our escort had orders that we were
to be out of the city by nine o’clock.

We drove through mean streets, attracting no attention
now. Before leaving, our sergeant paid a visit to his house
in order to collect his kit, leaving us at the door guarded
by four soldiers. His sisters came down to see him off, and
(being of progressive tendencies, I suppose) they were not
veiled. It would indeed have been a crime to have hidden
such lustrous eyes and skins so fair.

Some breath of reality, some call from the outer world
of freedom, came to me from their presence. They seemed
the first human beings I had seen since I had left a London
nursing-home in May. Since then I had been living in a
cold twilight of the senses, thinking of nothing but my
job. Sometimes in France I had felt that the whole world
except myself was stark staring mad ; and even in the
happy little Flying Corps mess which I had so lately left,
the same delusion would somedmes creep over me after a
particularly hard day’s work. What were we doing?
What were we all doing ? When I asked myself that, it
seemed no answer to say that we were defeating Germany.

These girls were happy, healthy, rounded, sentient

122

GOLDEN HORN

living things, far from the hard arabesques of war : the
answer of incarnate femininity to hate and muddle. So at
least they seemed to me, as I stood enchanted, lost in
reverie, looking into twin pairs of long, sdmond-shaped
eyes.

For a moment they returned my gaze in surprise,
thinking perhaps what shabby creatures these dreaded
airmen were, and for another moment they looked on us
with sympathy ; then they retired with squezds of laughter
and busied themselves with their brother’s baggage.

When we drove away they stood waving us good-bye.
I vowed that if Fate by a happy chance were to bring us
back with roles reversed, my first care would be to repay
their unspoken kindness : they were too beautiful to waste
their sweetness on bloody-minded Baghdadis : too amiable
to have a hand in Armageddon.

We travelled in arahas, conveyances which are typical
of the mind of the traditional East, now disappearing
before the steel and rubber inventions of the West.

The discomfort of the araba is as amazing as its endur-
ance. A pole (frequently lashed with string) transmits the
muscular energy of two ponies whose harness is mended
with string. The contrivance is surmounted by a patch-
work hood tied down with string. The passengers sit on
the floor. A few buckets and hay nets hang between its
rickety wheels. Such is the araba. If all the vitality
expended in the East upon starting on a journey were
turned to other purposes, the land might flourish, but the
philosophy which made the araba possible made other
activities impossible.

A full two hours before the start of our first stage after
Baghdad, when the world was still blue with cold, we

BAGHDAD

123

were summoned to leave our blankets. The drivers began
to feed their ponies : then they took a snack themselves :
then they loaded the baggage : finally, it occurred to
somebody that it was impossible to leave before the
cavalry escort : Ahmed Effendi was called for. Everyone
shouted for Ahmed Effendi, who was sleeping soundly,
like a sensible man : he woke, accused a driver of ste aling
his chicken : the driver replied in suitable language. Time
passed. The disc of the sun cut the Neapolitan-ice-cream
horizon of the desert, disclosing us stainding still and
cramped and unready.

A pony had lain down in his harness : no doubt he was
bored. A goat had stolen part of my scanty bread ration
and was now browsing in the middle distance. Far away,
a cur barked at jackals : some of our escort had retired to
pray, others ministered to the bored pony. A skewer was
rammed into its left nostril : I was on the point of protest-
ing against this barbarity when the pony struggled to its
feet and stood shivering, wide-eyed. The cure had
worked : the pony had had colic : everyone in Arabia
knows that wind in the bowels affects the brain, and that
bleeding is a sovereign remedy for cerebral affections.
After the wound had been sponged and the patient
refreshed by a few dates, he seemed ready for anything —
except another skewer in his nose.

Now we were ready. We climbed into the araia, but we
were not off yet, for the drivers sustained themselves with
a second breakfast.

An anonymous rhyme kept running through my frozen
head :

Slow pass the hours — ah, passing slow —

My doom is worse than anything
Conceived by Edgar Allan Poe.

GOLDEN HORN

124

But I did not know then how lucky we were to be
travelling in carriages at all ; nor what an honour it was
to be presented to the local governors through whose
districts we passed.

It was only later in captivity, when merged in a band of
prisoners, that I understood the pomp and circumstance
that attended those early days. In 1915 a prisoner was
still a rarity to the Turks. They were curious about us,
and to some extent the curiosity was mutual. I kept
comparing the Beys and Peishas I encountered with the
descriptions of similar oflScials given by Kinglake in
Eoiken.

We were generally received in a long low room, with
carpeted divans along one wall, and a few chairs for
distinguished visitors. The local magnate sat at a desk,
on which were set a saucer containing an inky sponge, a
dish of sand, some reed pens, a box of cigarettes. A scribe
stood beside the Kaimakam and handed him documents,
which he scrutinised as if they were works of art, holding
them delicately in his left hand as a connoisseur might
consider his porcelain Then with a reed pen he would
scratch at the paper in his hand, and after sprinkling it
carefully with sand would return it to the scribe. All this
was incidental to his conversation with us or with other
members of the audience.

At Samarra our demeanour was sorely tried. Travellers
say that the author of the Arabian Nights sleeps here, as
well as the Twelfth Imam who is to rise again on the
Day of Judgment, and that the presence of such distin-
guished dead has made the living inclined to be truculent :
we found it to be no traveller's tale.

We had halted in the rest-house on the right bank of
the river when a sergeant came to us from the Kaimakam

BAGHDAD 125

with orders that we were to be conveyed to his residence
across the river. We demurred, for we were very tired,
and were enjoying a frugal meal of dates and bread which
this summons would interrupt. Our own sergeant pro-
tested, but the Governor’s messenger would take no
excuse : we were hurried down to the river as night was
falling. Here we found that there was no boat to take us
across. The Samarra sergeant shouted to a coracle of
Arabs floating downstream, but they would not stop
Louder and louder he shouted, till his voice cracked in a
scream. Enraged, he fired his revolver at them He
missed, but the bullets, ricochetting in the water, probably
found a billet in the town beyond. The Arabs merely
laughed in their beards. We also laughed. Then the
sergeant declared that we would have to swim. We urged
him by gestures to show the way.

Eventually he saw a horse-barge with a naked boy
playing beside it. Reloading his revolver, a few shots in
that direction attracted the lad’s attention. An old man
came out of a hut by some melon beds to see what the
firing was about. After another shot or two, the old man
and the boy were prevailed upon to take us across. We
had secured our transport at last, and the whole transaction
seemed (in Samarra) as simple as hailing a taxi. I bought
a melon from the boy : he snatched my money contempt-
uously : no-one took things without violence here. I
noticed that all the boys and girls were fighting each
other, or engaged in killing something : they were
radiandy happy.

“ Is it true that you dropped bombs on the mosque of
Eazimain ? ” the Governor asked us.

“ We have never dropped bombs on any mosque,” I
answered.

120 GOLDEN HORN

“ But the population of Baghdad nearly killed you,
didn’t they, thinking you had done so ? ”

I shrugged my shoulders.

The Governor neither offered us cigarettes nor ordered
coffee, which was unusual in these parts. (How barbarous
must an Arab of the old school consider tis when he comes
to the West ! )

“ In another month,” he added, “ the British will be
driven into the Persian Gulf.”

“ No doubt,” I said wearily, “ but I want my supper.”

“ You shall have every comfort in your own quarters,”
said the Governor darkly, “ but I thought that it would
interest you to know that your Army is now in retreat.
Many prisoners have been taken.”

He stared at us in silence for some time (we showed no
emotion) then turned to his friends and made them a little
speech in Turkish ; finally he dismissed us with a jerk of
his head.

That night we passed in a bug-ridden and flea-full
hovel, whose only furniture consisted of a ch air. Our
sergeant was sitting on it when an officer came in and
jerked it from vmder him, leaving him on the floor. As a
trick it was neat, but as manners, deplorable.

We were very glad to leave Samarra.

Next day we met a Turkish squadron going down to
the siege of Kut. The men were a splendid type, and their
oflScers were most chivalrous cavaliers ; here in the desert
where luxuries were not to be had for money or murder,
they gave us a handful of tobacco or a packet of raisins,
and asked us to share their meal. With them we felt at
ease. Tiey were soldiers like ourselves and no

awkward questions.

BAGHDAD

127

We sat in a ring, cross-legged, drinking tea and smoking
cigarettes, with the panorama of the Marble Hills spread
out before us, from the southward plains of Arabia to the
home of the Devil Worshippers, misty and mysterious, in
the North. We talked about horses first (several of the
officers knew French) then our Guard Commander
related the story of our capture, which always gained a
good audience. I was watching one of our hosts rolling a
cigarette with one hand, and wishing that I knew the
trick, when he began to talk about the war. He made my
scalp creep, telling us of atrocities. The Armenians had
been massacring Turks in Eastern Anatolia, he said ;
they had intrigued with Russia : they had revolted at
Van : their subjugation was as necessary to modem
Turkey as the coercion of Red Indians had been necessary
to make America. The Armenians were a threat to the
heart of the Empire : the order had gone forth from
Constantinople : “ Yak, Var, Oldur — ^Bum, Kill, Destroy” :
they would be wiped out, he said, blowing on his hands.

Then he went on to speak of the crimes committed by
the Servians against the Bulgarians. A lieutenant of artil-
lery had been found disembowelled, with a barley-sheaf
stuffed into his abdomen ; a soldier had had his eyes
gouged out and military buttons put in their place ; a
peasant had had his ears bitten off ; a baby was cooked
alive ; and a cavalryman was discovered scalped, with
parts of his body cut off and thrust into his mouth.

I drew a long breath, and thought. Is this true ? If it
isn’t, who would invent such hideous stories ? If it is true,
then would it be wrong to think that :

. . . sucA a world began
In seme slow devils heart that hated man ?

GOLDEN HORN

128

I told my host of the deeds said to be perpetrated during
the German invasion of Belgium, He disbelieved my ac-
count, but I assured him that it had been printed in a
book with the names of sworn witnesses. He countered
my statement by saying that the stories he had related
would appear in Austrian official documents ; and they
were in fact published, just as he had told them to
me.

Here we were, sitting over our friendly cup of tea,
swopping tales of savagery which no savage untouched
by civilisation would have the hardihood to perpetrate.

4e ♦ a|e «

Off the leash, mankind was not pleasant to contem-
plate.

I pondered uneasily on the subject of war : no doubt it
was a bestial business, when not merely boring, as at
present conducted, but was Ruskin right when he wrote
in The Crown of Wild Olives that it is the foundation of
all the high virtues and faculties ofmen”? Anyway I did
not then believe in the possibility of controlling it, and
even if I had done so then, as I do now, the great winds
of the desert would have blown away those desires to im-
prove the world which influence the urbane. Yet I was
never at ease about atrocities, and am not now. Is our
civilised way of life so artificial that the weaker of us
break out in acts of awful cruelty when occasion offers ?

Before we arrived at Mosul we stopped for a bath at
the hot springs of Hammam-Ali, where we met a patri-
arch with a white beard, who assured us that he was a
hundred years old and in full enjoyment of his virility.

Mosul, the patriarch said, was a heaven on earth, where

BAGHDAD I2g

we would ride all day on the best horses of Arabia and
feast all night in gardens of enchantment. Two English
airmen were already there (we guessed that they must be
two officers from our mess who had been captured a
month before) living in peace and plenty with the Com-
mandant of the garrison : they often drove to Nabi
Yunus, across the Tigris, where the Prophet Jonah sleeps :
they visited the baths to be shampooed daily : they took
their coffee in the market place : they had been seen
drinking wine in long-necked bottles with foreign officers
passing through the city. The loveliest virgins of Circsissia
and lily-tall cup-bearers from Erzerum awaited the
pleasure of the guests of the Turkish Government.

Could this be the life of our comrades ? We doubted it,
but hoped it was true.

It was with some elation, therefore, that we saw the
distant prospect of Mosul next morning, set in its sur-
rounding hills. A fair city it seemed, white and cool, with
orange groves down to the Tigris, and many date trees,
but a closer acquaintance brought disappointment. We
passed a quarter which looked like a refuse-heap, where
curs grouted amongst offal : then drove down a mean
street when I observed children with eye-disease, and
adults with leprosies more terrible than Naaman’s :
everywhere we saw evidences of dirt, decrepitude and
decay.

We arrived at a tumbled-down barrack : our names
were taken in a dark office : thence we were led to a room
with windows boarded up, which was murkier and more
mouldering than any we had yet seen. After the sunlight
and air of the desert our hearts sank.

Out of the gloom two figures rose. They were our
friends. So changed and wasted were they that even after

iH

130 GOLDEN HORN

we had removed the boards from the little window we
could hardly recognise them.

They had heard nothing from the outer world for two
months. Except for two excursions to the bath they had
spent all their time in this cell.

One was so weak with dysentery that he could hardly
drag himself to his feet. The other had fever. Both were in
rags, unshaved, bewildered by our arrival.

CHAPTER VI

MOSUL

The ensuing days called for great eflfort on our part.
It was imperative to laugh, otherwise our friends would
have lost heart and our surroundings would have closed
in on us.

Two tiny rooms with low ceUings that leaked were
allotted to the four of us. In these we lived and ate and
slept, except for fortnightly excursions to the baths. We
lived in the semi-dark, on foods which, although healthy,
were strange to us, such as sour milk, dates, flaps of
unleavened bread : we had nothing to read and little
money. Our chief excitement was whether we would
receive our weekly pay. When it was in arrears, or the
shopkeepers refused paper money (as frequently happened
in Mosul) the sergeant who did our shopping returned
empty-handed. Cigarettes were cheap and good : when
we were in funds we all smoked too much. One red-letter
day the sergeant brought us paper, pens and ink. We
cut up lids of cigarette boxes for playing cards. We inked
out a chess board on a plank. We held a spiritualistic
stance with a soup bowl, there being no table available
to turn. We told interminable stories. I also wrote some,
and read them aloud, to the disgust of my companions.
We composed monstrous limericks, and we sang in
rivalry with the Arab guards outside, who made day
hideous with music and murdered sleep by snoring.

We had no place to exercise, except the few yards of
veranda leading to the latrine, and that was often inches

GOLDEN HORN

132

deep in ordure, for it was used by Turkish troops. The
Anatolian peasant lives on bread, olives, boiled barley,
and eliminates these foods in quantities that would not
disgrace an elephant. Doubtless his strength and amia-
bility are due to this power, and its frequent exercise, but
it does not make him a pleasant companion in a con-
gested barrack.

With little to eat, nothing to do, and hardly any space
to move, time dragged heavily, and I began to fear for
my brain. Sometimes it ran like a mechanical toy : like
a clock-work mouse, it scampered aimlessly amongst the
dust of memory, then became inert, with spring run
down. I grew afraid of thinking, especially at night, when
ideas crowded thick and fast over the body like a thunder-
storm over a parched plain. Each second seemed of
inconceivable duration, but there was no escape from
time.

I am surprised now that we did not quarrel amongst
ourselves, but perhaps we were too ill to do so. Illness
also accounted for my neglect of the calming breaths of
Yoga, which required an initial physical activity I did
not then possess and a privacy impossible to obtain in my
position.

After a few days, any kind of life apart from one’s
fellows was more than ever impossible, for three officers
captured during the retreat from Ctesiphon were added
to our number, making us seven in our cramped quarters.
We lived not only cheek by jowl, but under the constant
supervision of sentries, who were changed every two days,
for fear that we should bribe them.

Bribery was an obsession wdth our guardians. Was
there then a chance of buying our way out ? I turned the
idea over in my mind.

MOSUL

133

One night as I was picking my way to the latrine with
the help of matches, the sentry on duty whispered the
word “Jesus,” and made the sign of the Cross as I passed
him. After this introduction I naturally hoped that he
might be of use. He was a fine figure of a man, with a
proud poise of head, an aquiline nose, and delicate,
gracefully-moulded ears, as if some Hittite King had been
his ancestor.

Next morning I was gazing at him in admiration, and
gauging his possibilities, when a curious thing happened.

Our eyes met and he became mesmerised by my eye-
glass. (It has the same effect on some babies, and on
ravens.) For a long time we stared at each other in silence,
then, thinking that the sergeant of the guard would
notice our behaviour, I looked the other way. The sentry’s
mouth quivered and he burst into a storm of tears.
The sergeant came out to sec what was the matter. There
stood the big sentry, wsiiling, and actually gnashing his
white teeth. I tried to look as innocent as I felt. The
sergeant bristled with rage, pulled the sentry’s poor nose,
boxed his beautiful ears.

I had not the slightest idea what was the matter, nor
do I know now. He was hysterical. Yes, but why ? Was
he a Christian ? What pent-up emotions were released
when we met ?

That solvent of perplexity, nicotine, relieved the
situation. First the sergeant accepted a cigarette, and,
more diffidently, the sentry. I put in my eye-glass again,
a n d convinced them, I think, that it could weave no spell.

Foiled in this direction, my next adventure was with
a wall-eyed Chaoush^ who visited us occasionally as inter-
preter, and helped us to buy food. Ghaib Chaoush was a

1 Sergeant.

GOLDEN HORN

134

half-blind, bow-legged Baghdadi who had been in the
senice of Ali Ben Talib, the well-known Bombay horse-
dealer. He spoke English, and we made friends when I
told him that I had been the owner of a certain black
stallion of the great .(Eniza blood.

A friend and I laid our plans carefully. After a judicious
tip and some hints as to our importance in our own
country, we said that we wanted him to give us Arabic
lessons, and enlarged at the same time upon the career
that he might carve out for himself in racing circles in
India after the war. Gradually we led round to the subject
of his present circumstances. He had a wife and children
in Bombay, he told us. He had been in Baghdad when war
was declared, and had been conscripted to serve the
Turks. Mosul was hell. The Commandant was amassing
a fortune by stealing provisions intended for the troops
and prisoners in his charge.

“ Since those in authority are on the make,” I said,
“ why shouldn’t you turn an honest penny for yourself? ”

He pretended not to understand my meaning, and I
did not press him then. Next day, during a lesson, we
discussed the progress of the war : he said that he hoped
that the English would win, but doubted it.

What exactly was passing in his head ? Should I ask
him to help us to escape ? If he refused, he might tell the
Turks, and spoil any further attempt. If he acquiesced,
could I trust him ? The soul of man is well screened by
bamers of bone : only through the eyes can its light be
seen, and one of Ghaib’s was sightless. Never before or
ance have I been so eager a thought-reader. My throat
went dry, but I told myself that whatever I said then I
could afterwards deny if need arose. So I made him a
momentous proposal.

MOSUL 135

He winced as if my suggestion had been indecent, and
fixed me with a thunder-struck eye.

“ This is very sudden,” he quavered

I couldn’t help laughing.

“ It isn’t a joke,” he continued. “ I shall be killed if I
2im caught.”

So he was willing !

“ You won’t get caught : with good horses and a guide
like you we’ll be across the Russian frontier in four days.
It is worth a hundred pounds to you, over and above
expenses, and a job for life.”

“ Hush, I must think it over.”

The nights took on a new complexion now, flushed by
the hope of freedom. From our little window I could see
across a courtyard to the crumbling walls of Mosul and
a patch of muddy river : beyond it the mounds of Nineveh
and the tomb of Jonah lay under the starlight ; and
beyond them again the rolling downs that led to the
mountains of Kurdistan. My fancy went out to these
uplands as if carried thither by the winged gods of the
Assyrians. If sleep did not come, there were enthralling
adventures to be lived there : adventures of the colour of
dreams, yet tinged with possibility. We had bought
revolvers, our horses were ready, we had bribed our
guard. We rode far and fast, with our wall-eyed accom-
plice as guide. By evening we were in a great forest.

How shall I describe those curious days, stranger than
any others of my captivity ? Their quality is plain to me,
but I despair of conveying it on paper, for there is no peg
of action on which to hang my patchwork of memories.

True, we went to the baths once a fortnight, and passed
German officers in the streets, looking like beings from

136 GOLDEN HORN

anotlier world ; but except for these glimpses of the West,
we were far in time as well as place from all that had gone
to make our previous lives.

In the dungeons below us, Arab prisoners were living
chained together in pairs : where one went the other had
to follow : we were witnesses of many a macabre quarrel
on the way to the latrine : some drank their own urine :
the stench from their cells was over-powering.

And now a party of British and Indian soldier prisoners
arrived from Baghdad. About two hundred and fifty men
had been captured just before the siege of Kut: they
were taken first to Baghdad and thence by forced marches
to Kirkuk, a mountain town on the borders of the Turko-
Persian frontier. Why they were ever sent to Kirkuk I
do not know, unless it was thought that the sight of
starving prisoners would re-assure the population regard-
ing the qualities of the British soldier. After being ex-
hibited to the population, they were sent on to Mosul
through the bitter cold of the mountains, and arrived
shortly after the New Year of 1916. Only eighty out of
the original two hundred and fifty survived this march.

Sixty men arrived in column of route. Some were
barefoot ; some had walked two hundred miles in carpet
slippers ; all were sick and many sick to death ; but
they carried themselves with the courage of a day that
knows not death. . . . Surely history has rarely seen
so sad and brave a column. . . . Silently it filed into the
already crowded cellar, out of our sight.

After these men had disappeared, the stragglers began
to arrive. One man, delirious, led a donkey on which the
dead body of his friend was tied face downwards ; he
unstrapped the corpse, and fell in a heap beside it.
Dysentery cases collapsed in groups on the parade ground.

MOSUL

137

An Indian soldier who had contracted lockjaw, looked
up to the veranda where we stood surrounded by guards
and made piteous signs to his mouth with the stump of an
arm. We bribed our way down to him, to give him water :
his skin was so covered with lice that it looked grey
instead of brown, and the handless arm was crawling
with maggots : he died in a fit before we could do any-
thing for him.

It was little we could do for any of the cripples, for
Ibrahim Ghani Bey, the Commandant, arrived while we
were endeavouring to help them, and cursed and whipped
our guards for allowing us to leave the veranda. We were
driven back at the point of the bayonet.

With such a hell-hound in command at Mosul, escape
was urgent in order to carry news of the condition of our
men to England, but Ghaib Chaoush was still thinking over
the plan we had propounded, and preserved a tantalising
silence.

Finally, a sordid question of money proved to be our
undoing. We had already given Ghaib five pounds (which
represented so much bread taken out of our mouths) in
order to buy escaping gear, but he now stated that
another fifty pounds was indispensable immediately for
three horses and two Mauser pistols. This sounded reason-
able ; such things coiold not be secured on credit.

We could not borrow from other prisoners, yet money
we must have. We hoped that we would be able to
negotiate a cheque, and were in touch through Ghaib
with an hotel keeper, when Ghaib mislaid (or stole) a
five-pound note that had been entrusted to him by
another officer. This officer complained to the Com-
mandant about the loss, for the money had been intended
to buy food for the seven of us.

138 GOLDEN HORN

Ibrahim Ghani arrested Ghaib, who grew frightened,
invented a story about the complainant having asked him
to help in an escape, recanted, vacillated, contradicted
himself, and was bastinadoed for his pains.

After his punishment Ghaib was carried into our ceU.
The Commandant wished to hear from us whether there
was any truth in his story.

Indignantly and vehemently — and all except two of us
honestly, for the others knew nothing about our plans —
we denied ever having asked for his help.

“ The man must be mad,^* I said. No one ever
dreamed of leaving this place. How could we think of it,
with so many sentries ?

“ But stammered Ghaib.

“ But what ? Let the villain speak.**

I caught his eye, and saw in it awe for a liar greater
than himself

The Chaoush says that you planned to escape from the
back of the hammam^ and that you commissioned him to
buy three horses,** said the Commandant through the
interpreter

“ Well, where are the horses ? ** I asked. “ Does any-
one know anything about them ? And where is the
money ? You can’t buy three horses for five pounds.**

Suddenly Ibrahim Ghani spat in the delinquent’s
face.

** Take him away,** he said to the sentries, and turned
on his heel.

Stop a minute,** said the senior of our officers to the
interpreter — “ the Commandant owes us an apology for
this unfounded accusation.**

The Commandant saluted sourly, and told the inter-
preter that we would be allowed to go to the baths

MOSUL 139

to-morrow. That was a treat, but Ghaib’s gaffe was an
ill wind for all concerned.

He was sent to the front-line trenches. He was a fool
and twister as well as a traitor, but I daresay he man-
aged to “ wangle ” himself into another easy position on
the lines of communication : such men have a keen in-
stinct of self-preservation. Our guards were changed.
Our isolation became stricter : we were allowed no com-
munication whatever with the soldier prisoners, and were
not even permitted to stand on the veranda when any
troops were parading in the barrack square below. A
special police sentry watched my friend and me.

Our men, we heard, were dying at the rate of two or
three a day. Escape was more than ever difficult and
more than ever urgent. In these circumstances it was with
great excitement that I received the news that the German
Consul wanted to see me in the Commandant’s office.

Ranged round the room were various notables :
doctors, apothecaries, priests, law>'ers. Not for ten days
had I walked further than to the latrine. I bowed to
everyone present, after the manner of the country. On a
dais slightly above us sat the Consul and the Com-
mandant. For some time we kept silence ; then the Com-
mandant offered me a cigeirette. I rose in my chair and
saluted him, but refused the peace-offering.

The German Consul spoke. He told me that he had
been instructed by telegraph from the Sublime Porte,
acting on behalf of the German Ambassador, to pay me
the sum of five hundred marks in gold. The money came
from a friend of my father’s, Freiherr Baron von Mumm.
(He was a near neighbour of ours in Italy.) I begged the
Consul to thank the generous donor, and a vista of possi-
bilities immediately rose to my mind.

GOLDEN HORN

140

Our men, I said, were huddled together on the damp
flagstones of a dark cellar, deprived of all fresh air, and
sometimes kept without food for days. Several had gone
mad. The majority were suffering from dysentery, but
they were allowed to visit a trench outside their cellar
only three times a day, and sometimes not even so often,
for if a prisoner had any money, a knife, tobacco, any-
thing that the sentry wanted, he was forbidden to relieve
his bowels until he had parted with it.

“ I will leave twenty pounds of this money,’* I said,

to be administered by you on behalf of our sick
prisoners,”

‘‘ The Turkish Red Crescent will take care of the needs
of your prisoners,” answered the Consul, who desired to
stand well in the estimation of the Turks.

Not in Mosul,” I said, I want you to share with the
Commandant the responsibility for the treatment of our
prisoners. Soap is needed for two hundred men who have
been unable to wash for over a month ; and a dozen
kerosene tins, to hold the water which is often denied to
them by the sentries ; and about a hundred blankets. I
will give you a list of the chief requirements to-morrow,
also a letter for Baron von Mumm.”

My bluntness annoyed the Consul, but when the Sub-
lime Porte telegraphs from Constantinople the Provinces
lend a respectful ear ; and in this case the German
Ambassador was also concerned, I felt sure that my voice
crying in the wilderness would be heard to good effect.

The Commandant now demanded what complaints I
had to make, whereupon a confused wrangle began :

** There is not much use doing anything until the men
are moved to better quarters,” I said. “ They will go on
dying in that filthy cellar.”

MOSUL

I4I

“ He says nothing can be done,” the interpreter trans-
lated, or something to that effect : I could understand
enough Turkish to know that he did not attempt to
reproduce my words.

“ Then of what does he complain ? ” asked the
Commandant.

“ I say that beasts in my country are better cared for
than prisoners in yours. Our soldiers are dying of hunger
and cold.”

“ He says the men are dying of cold,” said the inter-
preter, shivering at his temerity.

“ The weather is not my fault,” grumbled the Com-
mandant, “ but perhaps it will be better to-morrow. Yes,
yarin.”

Argument was waste of time, but I believe that the
small sum of money I was able to leave with the German
Consul achieved its purpose in compelling him to open
his eyes to the condition of our prisoners.

Shortly after this interview we seven officers were
moved from Mosul, where oiu: presence was becoming
irksome. Some of our men followed us across the desert a
week later. Alas, we were not allowed to accompany
them : had we done so we might have been able to
alleviate their sufferings a little, but the custom of war is
to keep soldier prisoners apart from their officers, and
the Turks had good reason not to let us see the trail of
death that led towards their western cities.

Ibrahim Ghani Bey came to see us off. He stood stocldly,
his legs astraddle, scowling at us as we drove away in
four carriages (two for ourselves Jind two for our escort
and vented his venom in his usual way. But the taste of
us was not to be dispelled in his saliva. I heard afterwards
that when my letters reached Constantinople he was

GOLDEN HORN

142

deprived of his command : I hope he was sent to some
lingering and uncomfortable fate.

From the direction we took, we guessed our destination
to be Aleppo.

Our spirits rose as we filled our lungs and stretched our
legs : nothing could be worse than what was behind us :
ahead lay comparative freedom, and the civilisation of
Syria

Two strange horsemen joined our caravan a day’s
march out of Mosul. One we called the Boy Scout (I
never learned his real name) for he did a good action not
once but many times a day. Until we had been provided
for he never attended to his own comfort. After eighty
miles of travelling everyone is tired, but although the
Boy Scout must have been as tired as any of us (for he
rode instead of driving) no brother officer could have
been more helpful, or more kind.

He was dark-eyed and graceful, riding a milk-white
mare like a prince in a fairy tale ; and I believe he was a
prince in real life, from Afghanistan or Persia. We had
no language in common, but somehow we understood
each other. (Or was he a spy, who knew English and
listened to our talk ? If so, he did it charmingly.) At times
a mere glance will proclaim a kindred spirit in a stranger :
so it was between him and me : the war was far : we were
more than brothers.

Our other friend was Colonel (now General) Raphael
de Nogales, a hard-bitten young soldier of fortune from
Vene2uela who had offered his services first to the Allied
Powers (who had refused to enlist a foreigner) and then-
to Germany. From Berlin he had been sent to Constan-
tinople, and thence to Van, where Enver Pasha was

MOSUL 143

planning the wholesale extermination of the Armenians
of that province.

On arrival, de Nogales found himself in command of the
artillery which was to bombard the Christian quarter of
the city, in the centre of which lay the American Mission.
Enver’s intention was obvious, but de Nogales was too
shrewd to allow responsibility for massacres to be laid on
him, and he was now travelling back to the capital on
sick leave, expecting to be murdered on the way, for he
had seen things not meant for his eyes.

He was unmindful of his own fate, but took a sports-
manlike interest in ours. Some of his experiences had
seared deep into his sensitive and romantic naind : a mind
curiously at variance with his life. I give one of his stories,
not quite as he told it to me on the journey, but as he
afterwards wrote it more politely in Four Tears Beneath
the Crescent :

“ It was not yet midday of June the i8th, 1915 when
we drew rein before Sairt, whose narrow white houses in-
dicated its Babylonian origin. Six minarets, one of them a
leaning tower, stood out hke needles of alabaster against
the turquoise Mesopotamian sky. Herds of cattle and
black buffalo were grazing peacefully over the surround-
ing plain, while a group of woolly dromedaries drowsed
about a solitary spring. The momentary sensation of
tranquillity evoked in my troubled spirit was rudely shat-
tered, however, by the atrocious spectacle afforded by a
hill beside the highway.

“ The ghastly slope was crowned by thousands of
half-nude and still bleeding corpses, lying in heaps, or
interlaced in death’s final embrace. Fathers, brothers,
sons and grandsons lay there as they had fallen under the
bullets and yataghans of the assassins. From more than

144 GOLDEN HORN

one slashed throat the life gushed out in mouthfuls of
warm blood. Flocks of vultures were perched upon the
mound, pecking at the eyes of dead and dying, whose
rigid gaze seemed still to mirror the horrors of unspeakable
agony ; while the scavenger dogs struck sharp teeth into
the entrails of beings still palpitating with the breath of
life.”

He told us much more in the same strain, which
linked up with all I had heard before with regard to the
Armenians. Fifteen thousand of them had perished in one
day in Bitlis ; their total casualties were probably about
half a million. De Nogales had no doubt that Taalat Bey
was personally responsible for the policy of massacre.

“ They’re a murderous lot,” he said, “ and they’ve
tried to poison me once and shoot me twice. They’ll do
you in, if they get the chance, even if it’s only to get the
gold stopping in your teeth, but it won’t happen as long
as I’m here. I tote a straight gun. Remember, no nonsense
though : I’m out to help you, but not to let you escape : if
you try that, I shoot.”

We crossed the country of the Devil Worshippers ; we
slept in mud huts amongst rats, and once on a dcspoOed
Christian altar ; we encountered a thunderstorm, forded
swollen rivers, lost our way and found it again, gnawed
skinny chickens with hospitable Sheikhs ; saw a village of
dead Armenians at Tel-Armin by twilight ; and if it had
not been for the sickness amongst us I at any rate would
have been happy.

Tel-Armin was ugly, with its bloated carcasses of bul-
locks (the other corpses had been buried) and its plangent
dogs with phosphorescent eyes, but I had already imag-
ined worse things. I was not horrified by it, but when my
best fiiend fell iU I lost my nerve. My friend had been the

MOSUL

145

strongest amongst us, and I had hoped to escape with him.
Now he shivered and sweated alternately : his eyes
glazed, his lips swelled, his face was distorted : the Ar-
menian deportations had left a trail of typhus in these
parts, and I feared for him.

The fear never left me until we had traversed the two
hundred miles of desert that brought us to the rail-head at
Ress-el-Ain.

Here our Guard Commandant, excited perhaps by the
approach to civilisation, or else because he was free from
the restraining influence of the teetotal Boy Scout, who
had gone on by a faster train, purchased several bottles of
'araq from the station buffet and became blind drunk.

In Aleppo we became separated from the rest of our
party and were left in charge of an old, very sleepy and
rather friendly soldier. There seemed to be some doubt
in his mind eis to where we should pass the night, but
eventually, by some means which I have forgotten, we
arrived at a small, clean, Turkish hotel, where we were
told, mysteriously, that we would be among friends.

I looked for friends, but as everyone was asleep, it
being then two o’clock in the morning, I decided to take
a good night’s rest before making any plans. ... So the
golden hours passed which should have seen me on my
way to the sea coast.

Writing this by my fireside in Chelsea, over a pipe and
cup of tea, I blame myself for not escaping. But things
looked different in Aleppo. I was physically and men-
tally exhausted, and my friend was ill. The bedroom
tempted me : its curtains were of Aleppo-work, in broad
stripes of black and gold : the rafters were striped in
black and white : the walls were dead white ; the furniture
dead black : three pillows adorned our twin beds, of

Kh

1^6 GOLDEN HORN

black and of crimson and of brilliant blue, each with a
white slip covering half their length : the coverlets were
black, worked with gold dragons : for three months I had
laid my dirty quilt on dirty floors : clean sheets and a
spring mattress proved irresistible.

After a dreamless night, I rose, greatly refreshed, and
dressed in haste. As no guards seemed to be about, I hoped
to hail a carriage and drive away to another part of the
city, where I would find some Christian merchant who
would cash a cheque and shelter my friend.

But these plans were dispelled by finding the Boy
Scout in the passage : I daresay he or his servant had
been there all the time.

“ Your Guard Commander wsis ill,” he explained, “ so
it was arranged that you should be brought to this hotel,
where you are my guests. I have already telephoned about
your fnend : he will be admitted to hospital this afternoon.
And I want you to lunch with me at midday.”

My face fell.

But the Boy Scout’s hospitality proved to be princely
indeed. First came a variety of hors d^auvres (the tnizi is
a national dish) then soup, savoury meats, a mountainous
sweet-smelling pilaff, and a dessert of honey-and-cream
enclosed in melting morsels of pastry. After refreshing
our palates with bowls oi yaghourt, the Boy Scout took
cofiee and I drank his health in a glass of Cyprian
wine.

Then we went to his bedroom, where I found all his
belongings spread out, including several tins of English
bully-beef and slabs of chocolate, which he said were his
share of the loot of the Dardanelles, He begged me to
help myself to everything I wanted in the way of food or
clothing, and telephoned again to the hospital to say that

MOSUL

147

we were arriving with my friend. (It is strange how one
can never repay those to whom one is most indebted.)

We were met at the entrance by two odd little doctors.

“ What is the matter with him ? ” squeaked Humpty in
French.

“ Fever,” said I.

“ Um-um,” said Dumpty, and “ Uh-huh ! ”

“ Let’s look at his chest and back,” said Humpty.

My friend disrobed, shivering in the sharp air, and the
two glared at him, standing several yards away.

He hasn’t got it,” they said.

“ Hasn’t what ? ”

“ Typhus. Carry him in. He will be well in a week.”

I doubted it, but hoped they were right.

My friend was borne through a crowd of miserable men,
in every stage of disease, all clamouring for admittance,
and put to bed. No one, I gathered, was allowed into that
hospital merely for the dull business of dying : they could
do that as well outside.

Thankful for small mercies, I left him in the clutches of
Humpty and Dumpty. Even as they had predicted, he
was well within a week.

It was now my turn to fall iU, and I did it with great
suddenness.

I was sitting at the window of the house in which we
were confined in Aleppo, feeling perfectly well, smoking,
enjoying the spring sunshine, and lousing my trousers, in
whose seams an active and industrious family had hoped
to remain for the duration of the war, when I began to
shiver.

In half an hour I was in a high fever and the right side
of my face was paralysed.

That night I was taken to Humpty and Dumpty : they

golden horn

148

looked at my chest and back : hummed and uh-huhed :
gave me some nasty stuff to drink. Soon I was uncon-
scious.

Where was I, I asked myself when I came to ? I had
been sick : I had fouled my bed : I couldn’t move.

No one came : I felt inclined to be sick again : I forced
myself to roll to the edge of the bed. Was I alone ? Even
that I could not discover, for although I knew that it was
day I could not see beyond my bed and the floor : a brown
floor on which I had made a greenish-white stain. I could
hear a little : as well as see a little : these were the only
senses that remained : was I on board ship, listening to
eight bells ringing ? Or dead ? Not dead, surely, for I
was conscious of my unpleasant condition, and ashamed
of it, also I was frightened, thinking that I was about
to die.

How long I lay I do not know, but when I awoke, with
an instant need to get up, I discovered that I could see
better and that I could crawl out of bed on my hands and
knees.

I was in a large low room with two other beds in it
occupied by inert figures ; and I was dressed in a cotton
nightshirt. At the foot of my bed was a striped quilt
which seemed familiar (it had been my companion for
three months) though I could not at first link it up with
my life. But by the time I had crawled to the hole in the
floor at the end of the passage, I remembered that this
was Aleppo, the stronghold of civilisation to which my
hopes had so often turned in the desert.

I struggled back, wrapped myself in my quilt, and
waited. Something would happen soon : my fellow
patients would wake up : a nurse would come to take our
temperatures, I would send a message to the American

MOSUL

149

Consul. I began to wish that I possessed nail scissors,
a looking-glass, a comb. Perhaps these articles were some-
where about, but it was difficult to turn my head. Al-
though my hands and legs and eyes objected to obeying
orders, I began to feel better inside.

At last Humpty and Dumpty arrived with three ragged
male attendants. They inspected the other patients first,
rolling them over and pulling down their clothes. When
they came to me, they paid no attention to what I tried to
say : an orderly brought a water-proof mat and ripped the
sheets off my bed : another picked me up in my quilt and
laid me back on it, throwing a couple of blankets on the
top of me. Humpty and Dumpty walked away.

I raised myself up to protest, then sank back and cried
like a child from weakness. At midday I was given a bowl
of gruel, and in the evening the two doctors came again
and prescribed a purgative. In spite of their rough and
ready maimer, I began to feel confidence in their method.
They never looked at a tongue or at a thermometer : all
that seemed to interest them was the state of the patient’s
skin. Is it possible, I asked myself, that patients are
sometimes killed by kindness in Western hospitals ? Good
nursing means the taking of night temperatures, dawn-
washings, frequent feeding, whereas the natural instinct
of the sick is to lie quietly, with no nurse but vis medicatrix
natura.

However I was not allowed to lie quietly : at the bidding
of the doctors I drank a quart of tepid saline mixture,
sipping the draught slowly. My stomach revolted, and
then my bowels, but I continued drinking, telling myself
that the mixture was Imperial Tokay, which amused me,
and gave me a sense of power over the miserable, mictur-
ating, defecating, sweating, vomiting, gasping, pavid

GOLDEN HORN

150

envelope of skin that had plagued me by presuming to be
ill. What was the body, I asked myself emptily ?

Then my temples began to throb and my thumbs
seemed to swell to a colossal size : the fear of death gripped
me again : I did not want to give up the ghost : I was no
Rama Krishna saying “ Neti, neti — not this, not this ” to
the delusions of the senses : I struggled out of bed, half-
delirious, in order to expel my illness by all the avenues of
the flesh.

I did not get far. Presently I found myself lying in a
patch of moonlight in the passage, too weak to go back or
forward, so I cooled my head against a jar that someone
had left there for ablutionary purposes, and wondered
what would happen now. . . .

I began to think of seas and rivers. All the delightful
things that I had done in water kept flitting through my
mind.

I remembered crouching in the bow of my father’s
cat-boat as we beat up a reach to Salem, Massachusetts,
with the spray in our faces : I thought of the sparkling
sapphire of the Mediterranean : of the cool translucencies
of Cuckoo-weir. No one came to disturb my meditations.
Desire for actions was dead : I rested, as once before in
India after a polo match, on a smooth stream of memory :
heard the beat of far-off seas, remembered ship-board
dawns and twilights, felt again in my face the breaking of
the monsoon on a thirsty plain, but all with transmuted
senses, attuned to rhythms I had never reached in waking
life.

The moonlight shifted across my body and slowly the
wells of consciousness began to fill. Definitely, I knew that
I was better. It was as if I had really travelled to America
and to Italy and to the Thames, living again upon their

MOSUL I5I

waters, and as if their solace had washed me clean. Now
I was coming back to my body in Aleppo.

* « « *

A few days later — saved by a dose of salts or by imagi-
nation — I had rejoined my companions in the city, and
was ready to start with them on our journey to the interior
of Turkey.

* * * *

Our destination was Afionkarahissar, a town in the
centre of Anatolia.^

I remember little of the journey thither. When vitality
goes, memory follows it. I was worn out, more dead than
alive. Vaguely I recollect a crowded train, a stage by
carriages, carrying my quilt — ^which seemed to weigh a
ton — up a mountain path, and fainting on the way, a dead
Indian whom we thought the guards had killed, and a
doctor whom we questioned as to whether lice would give
us typhus : he had opened the collar of his txmic and said,
“ Don’t worry : I’m swarming with them myself and
haven’t got it yet.” At Bozanti I implored the Turks to
leave me and let me die. I lay on some sacks in the railway
station, a bundle of skin and bone that might not have
been human at all. Porters threw more sacks on the pile
and I was soon almost covered. I lay stUl : as my bodily
weakness increased, so did my mind range out beyond
normal consciousness, deep into myself and wide into the
world. I thrilled to this strange strength, which seemed to
mount to the throne of Time, surveying life from a great

1 Afionkarahissar (Black Opium Rock) is reached by the Aleppo-
Constantinople railway, but in 1916 there were two breaks in the line, at
Islahie and Bozanti, where the sections across the Taurus Mountains had
not been completed.

GOLDEN HORN

152

height. I saw then something which happened three
months later, at this station.

I saw some hundred men, prisoners from Kut and
mostly Indians, gathered on the platform : one of them
was sitting on this heap of sacks ; he was sitting here
rocking himself to and fro in great pain and sorrow, for a
guard had struck him with a rifle butt and broken his arm.
Not only his bone but the spirit within him was shattered :
no hope remained : he had done that which is most
terrible to a Hindu, for he had eaten the flesh of cows and
broken the ordinances of his caste. His companions had
died in the desert without the lustral rites prescribed by
the Vedas, and he would soon die also, a body defiled, to
be cast into outer darkness. For a time the terror of that
alien brain was mine : I shared its doom and knew its
death.

Later, I learnt that a party of men, coming out of the
desert, had halted at this station, and that a Hindu soldier
with a broken arm had died on these sacks. I record the
incident for what it is worth : at the time it did not interest
me so much as the exploration of myself.

In Aleppo I had not wanted to die. Now I was ready to
do so, and awaited the sensations with interest. Where
was the body’s ghost which presently I should be asked to
give up ? Where ? I looked for it in my breathing, my
brain, my heart, my solar plexus.. There must be a centre
somewhere : a place for the ghost : I searched for it and
although I could not find it I knew that Heaven was here
and now : I knew it with a certainty that no books, no
thought could have given me. The path to it was diflScult
but discoverable : through a maze of actions and reac-
tions, nerves and breathing, desire and imagination, there
was a way to the true Self.

MOSUL

153

I thought, Life is inside us, not outside : it is that which
Christ meant when He said “ The Kingdom of God
is within you” and what St. John the Divine meant when
he said “ Now are we sons of God . . . when He shall
appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as
He is ” : soul and body are inviolate : there is no death,
but only change : I renounce my little personality for
the Life eternal of which I am a part : only there is
Heaven to be found : and if I happen to go on living, I
shall describe for others this wine that lies deep within
them. . . .

But before I could find the key of the cellar, kind hands
lifted me up and carried me into the Afionkarahissar
train.

I

CHAPTER VII

OUT OF GREAT TRIBULATION

At Afionkarahissar I rested blissfully on the
floor of a bare house, zisking for nothing better than to be
allowed to lie stifl for ever and ever.

On the second day, however, our guards showed signs
of great excitement. They nailed barbed wire round our
windows, watched us anxiously through skylights, counted
us continually, as if uncertain whether two and two made
four.

Presently we learned the meaning of these precautions :
three prisoners had escaped : our captors were locking the
stable door after the steeds had gone.

All the prisoners in Afionkarahissar were marshalled
in the street below our house : Russian, French, British ;
naval, military, civilian ; in odd mixtures of uniform and
bazaar clothes, and some in fancy dress to mark the
occasion ; carrying pots, pans, deck chairs, musical
instruments. One of them led a long-dog. Behind them
came three country carts piled high with their possessions.

We were taken downstairs and marched in their com-
pany to the Armenian church at the base of the big rock
that dominates the town, singing the vulgar anthem of
prisoners :

" We won’t ie bothered (?) about
Wherever we go, we always shout
We*re bothered if we'll be bothered about !

We won’t be bothered about. .

OUT OF GREAT TRIBULATION I55

The leader of our impromptu band was a crippled
officer, dressed in an overcoat, pajamas, and bowler hat,
who waved a crutch as baton whenever we halted, which
was often, for we were an unmanageable, disorderly
crew. He hobbled along, a tall figure in a faded brown
overcoat, with one pink-striped leg supporting him and
the other leg swinging, bandaged to the size of a bolster,
and hat askew, and long chin stuck out defiantly, hymn-
writer and hero manqui, fit leader of lost causes and of our
fantastic pageant. Alas, his voice is stilled, for he died of
his wounds in hospital a year later.

Our behaviour astonished the townsfolk, who connected
such processions with massacres rather than melody. At
the door of the church a group of Armenian women and
children (kept alive for the use of the soldiers after their
men had been “ deported ”) watched us curiously as we
entered what had been their sanctuary. It was not thus
that their husbands had met their fate. Some made the
sign of the Cross as we passed : others drew their hands
across their throats and laughed in a lunatic way. In face
of their griefs our gaiety was rather shocking, but we
couldn’t help it : three good men had escaped and more
might follow : we were glad to be “ strafed ” in such a
cause.

Later in captivity I noticed that only the British rejoiced
in the midst of adversity. The French were appalled
by our levity during the bad days in the Spring of
1918 : how could we sing and dance when we were
losing the war ? No satisfactory answer was ever given
them.

To anyone in decent health the month we spent in the
Armenian church must have been an interesting experi-
ence. Even to me, it was not without amusement. It was

GOLDEN HORN

156

a plain, rather gloomy building of oak and sandstone,
with a marble chancel in the east. Two rooms opened
out on either side of the altar, and there was a gallery in
the west. In the body of the church the English camped.
One of the vestries was taken by the French, the other
was reserved for a chapel. The Russians inhabited the
space between the chancel and the altar, but the overflow
of nationalities mingled. Our soldier servants lived in the
gallery. When everyone was fitted in, there was no space
to move except in the centre aisle.

During the first night of the strafe, the Russians thought
that the Turks would attack us, and kept watch until the
small hours of the morning. All night — for I too was
sleepless — I watched these grave, bearded men clumping
up and down the aisle in their heavy boots, expecting a
pogrom, while the French and English snored, moaned,
made noises as if eating soup. At last dawn lit the windows
over the altar and a ray of sunlight crept into the transept.
The Russians dropped in their tracks, and joined the
chorus of our slumbers.

The noise the two hundred of us made in sleep was re-
markable. The church was never silent : in addition to
the usual noises some cried out continually, others whined,
and one man laughed at regular intervals : one could hear
the eruption brewing in his belly and mark it bubbling
to his lips.

All of us were the survivors of some strange experience
and had lived through bad moments. Out of four hun-
dred officers reported missing on Gallipoli, only seventeen
had survived, and amongst the men the proportion was
about the same : small wonder that we were restless.

One of the Dardanelles prisoners had been dragged as
a supposed corpse to the Turkish trenches and there built

OUT OF GREAT TRIBULATION I57

into the parapet. He was not dead, but stunned : when
he came to life the Turks began to bayonet him to avoid
disturbing the earthwork, but orders had been issued by
Liman von Sanders that a few prisoners were required for
Intelligence purposes, and he was spared. He was none
the wone now for his experience except that he suffered
slightly from deafness, as his ear had formed the base of a
loophole.

Then there was a boy of nineteen, who had been left
as dead after an attack : he also had recovered con-
sciousness, but not the use of his limbs until some time
afterwards : for an hour he had lain helpless, in the path
of the Turkish retreat. Passers-by prodded him with bay-
onets, so that he now had twenty-seven wounds, and a
gap in his bottom where there should have been solid
flesh. From the brink of the valley of the shadow he had
returned to life : he told one of us that in his experience
the most unpleasant place to be stabbed wais the stomach.
No doubt he knew.

Again, there was a young Frenchman, who had re-
mained four days and nights between the lines, disem-
bowelled and tortured by thirst ; but by a miracle he had
survived, and now at night, sometimes, when will lost its
grip on consciousness, he would live those ninety-sis
hours again. . . .

The sailors amongst us had had many adventures.
The crew of Commander A. D. Cochrane’s submarine,
£7, had narrowly escaped a death of horror. They had
been returning through the Straits after many brilliant
exploits in the Marmora when their ship fouled one of the
numerous obstructions which had been prepared for her
in the Narrows. For twenty-four hours £7 struggled to
release herself, but could neither go forward nor back, and.

GOLDEN HORN

158

it was uncertain— improbable, indeed — whether she would
ever be able to rise, for she was held fast by the nose.
Above her, launches were searching with drag nets, and
probing by means of depth-charges : unseen objects
would scrape and tap against her hull : at any moment
there might be an explosion, a surge of water, oblivion.

Astern lay the chance of another attempt to break
through the net, and ahead lay freedom and glory, but in
these directions the ship would not move. Above waited
enemies, and below waited death by suffocation : the
batteries were gassing so badly that the crew became
diz2y : a mine exploded so violently that the shock
knocked a teapot off the table : the hull began to sweat
and leak. Hemmed-in and helpless, few men can have
lived through worse hours.

Cochrane hardly spoke until he ordered the tanks to be
blown. That was the last chance of saving his men : it
meant surrender — ^if the ship would come to the surface.

All those in Ey watched the depth gauge : its pointer
stood still, indicating their doom. They were held fast.
Yes — ^no — yes, at last the finger trembled a little towards
life. Then it stuck. On the face of the dial they read
their fate. The needle was moving again : they were
floating up : they were saved : it is not strange if the
agony of that suspense now haunted their sleep.

Men who had lived through such hours were heroes,
and there were scores of them here, but I cannot say that
seen at close quarters in captivity Man seemed noble in
reason or in action like an singel, though he was certainly
infinite in faculty for amusing himself.

For myself, I flinched from noise, dirt, human beings.
I thought, How glorious to be a scholar, or even a staff

OUT OF GREAT TRIBULATION 159

officer ! With what delight and diligence I would now
perform the duties I had before despised in the Adju-
tant’s office ! Why had I volunteered to fly ? My career
was over : here I was shivering in mephitic darkness :
better to have lived in the sunlight of India, even if in-
gloriously. The right side of my face was paralysed : I
suffered pangs of hunger, but immediately food touched
my lips I had to scurry for the privy, outside which it was
necessary to beg permission to enter from a Turkish
soldier : I w£is never warm although I sweated copiously
every night, and I had no clothes into which to change.
These were small sufferings compared to those that others
were enduring in the Northern Desert of Arabia, but
illness limits the imagination : my world was bounded
by my sluggish skin : in it I brooded listlessly, and
did not become human until the night when I drank
*araq.

I would not recommend my method as a cure for dis-
tempers of the mind and body : alcohol is a deceiver, but
then this is a world of illusions. Many of us felt a craving
for strong drink while we were in the church : the few
who didn’t, urged the same arguments against it as are
used the world over, while we pursued our way regard-
less of their opinion.

’Araq is a colourless alcohol distilled from raisins and
flavoured with aniseed : it clouds when mixed with water,
and tastes like cough-mixture. A great wicker bottle of it
was brought into the church one evening, paid for by
some prisoner who had succeeded in cashing a cheque.
I took a glass of it mixed with water, half-in-half, and
felt better. Instead of eating, I drank more.

At midnight we were seated at a table under the high
altar, round the diminishing demi-john.

l6o GOLDEN HORN

“ Here's to the hold and gallant three
Who broke their bonds and sought the sea”

sang one of the poets of our captivity, and all of us took
up the chorus with a roar.

When it was finished, a hundred lusty voices
proclaimed :

“ Jolly good song and jolly well sung,

Jolly good fellows every one.

He that can beat it is welcome to try.

Only remember the singer is dry. . .

The table was littered with pipes and glasses : tadlow
dips lighted the vaulted gloom : we might have been
Elizabethan roysterers had there been any wenches to
serve us with sack.

But soon we more resembled Tamerlane’s Tartars or
the hordes of the sanguinary Hulagu, for something from
the buried past worked itself into our blood, and we
became savages. There was a free fight on the chancel
steps : we assaulted each other with paper rolls, wrestled,
boxed, worked off months of repression in a rough and
tumble. I tried to join in it, but slipped, and could not
rise amidst the press of people, so lay happy, with thump-
ing heart.

The sentries in the gallery shouted to us to stop, think-
ing that this was a riot, but no one paid any attention,
so they loaded their rifles. As we were being treated like
Armenians they could not understand why we did not
behave like Armenians. The French and Russians were
almost as surprised as the Turks.

And now the Master of the Ceremonies, still in pyjamas
and bowler hat, rapped with his crutch. “ Silence for
the prisoners’ band,” he cried.

OUT OF GREAT TRIBULATION l6l

We had sung every song we knew : now we were
going to make a noise. Rather sheepishly the sentries
unloaded : they were beginning to learn the child-like
habits of the English.

The band began : it consisted of penny whistles, cast-
anets, banjos, bowls, knives, forks. The motif was our
release. Andante con coraggio we passed the weary months
ahead : the dawn of our liberation broke : we smashed
everything we possessed as the train to take us away
steamed into the station. Sh ! Shh ! Shhh ! Chk ! Chk !
Chk ! Bang ! Swish ! We took our seats amid pande-
monium ; the train whistled, louder and louder : we
moved off, faster and faster and faster in a grand finale
of freedom until no one could make any more noise. A
cloud of dust had risen like incense to the roof.

Strange doings in a church ? And silly ? I like to think
that if Christ had been present He would not have turned
away, and that when the demi-john was empty He would
have turned the water into wine.

Next day was Sunday and I attended Service in the
vestry.

Spring had come. I could smell it, in spite of other
smells ; and from the corner where I stood I could see a
pear-tree in blossom against a radiant sky. There was joy
in the strong, sane, well-remembered words of our
Common Prayer. We sang “ Fight the good fight ” and
‘‘ Onward, Christian Soldiers.’’ We were not of that white
company that died for England, but we knew the sorrow
of the women who mourned, and of the old who stood
outside the fray, as we did ourselves.

GOLDEN HORN

162

Suddenly the strafe ended.

We were taken away to live in four little new contiguous
houses, where we found stalwart sailors from Trebizond
replacing the woolly Anatolian peasants who had guarded
us hitherto ; also a new Commandant, a flint-faced Major
named Muzloom Bey, whose crimes it would be impossible
to catalogue in detail.

Our houses were quite new ; so new that they had no
windows, and no furniture or other conveniences. We
fitted frames and panes, we erected bathrooms, installed
Mtchen ranges, made beds out of planks and string, and
tables out of packing-cases. We made everything, in fact,
except the actual houses. The Turks should have pro-
vided these things : they did not do so because they
could not, and I daresay we were at this time better off
than officer prisoners in Germany, for food was still
comparatively cheap and our servants were allowed into
the bazaars to make daily purchases.

But the men were in a diflficult position. Every month
the United States Embassy used to send the prisoners a
certain sum of money (varying with the cost of living) to
enable them to buy something better than the black
bread and barley porridge provided by the Turks, but
when this allowance did not arrive in time, or delay
occurred in its distribution, our soldiers were reduced
to sad straits. Treatment in Turkey was good or bad
according to the means of the prisoner.

A microscopic but not unamusing social life began.

We grouped ourselves into four messes : there were
parties and politics, clubs and cliques : each of us settled
down to the pursuit of such happiness as he considered
possible : lecturers discoursed on a wide variety of topics
firom Mendelism to Mesopotamia : there were professon

OUT OF GREAT TRIBULATION 163

of both ancient and modem languages : the Board of
Trade sent out luminous volumes dealing with such
subjects as Law, the Integral Calculus, Guests of British
Ants and Creative Evolution : two of us kept dogs and
one of us an eagle owl : a M^or became an expert tin-
smith : a Colonel became a cook. And Bodivere, Ethel-
wulf and I hoped to become philosophers : we met daily
at tea-time to discuss Bergson.

A diary of my days might run as follows :

“ Monday. Up at 6 a.m. Skipped 200 times. 2 eggs for
breakfast. Tried my new pekmes.^ Read Looked out

places on my hidden map : the Allies have advanced on
the Somme. Long argument about the use of cavalry in
modem war. Walk in garden. Mutton cutlets for lunch.
Completed making my hammock. Argued about Free
Trade. Played boufrou (a kind of badminton-tennis
played with a sock) in garden. Read Bergson with
Bodivere and Ethelwulf : it is hard to jump from “ le
tremplin de la vie.” Sakuska party at seven. Drank Greek
brandy and ’araq mixed. The world looked beautiful from
my window, stretching out in white and red of poppy
fields to the snows of the mountains south of us. I thought,
I’m a ghost, watching the treasure of my youth being
wasted in mean and ugly ways. I daresay the drink had
something to do with it. Dinner at 8 : soup, eggs, suet,
very satisfactory. Bridge and bed.

“ Tuesday. Up at 6.15. Skipped 250 times, and had a
boxing lesson. Painful. 2 eggs for breakfast, but one bad.
Hilal did not arrive. Argued about yesterday’s cavalry
news. Walk in garden. No meat for lunch : only potatoes

1 A substitute for jam, made from raisins.

* A Muhammedan morning paper of Constantinople> published in
French,

164 GOLDEN HORN

and buffalo cream. Bitten by mosquitoes in my hammock.
Argued about Protection. Ran round the garden ten
times, my wind is getting worse. Sakuska party at seven
in my room. Polly the opium girl was seen walking out
with a soldier : she took him into the high crops. Dinner
at 8. Mutton cutlets. Chess and bed.

Wednesday. Up at 5.30 because I couldn’t sleep.
Skipped 300 times : argued with sentry who tried to pre-
vent me. Why ? Quarrel at breakfast, God knows what
about. Bodivere is going to speak at to-morrow’s debate :
“ Do Men Need Women ? ” I wonder what Polly thinks ?
She came close underneath my window this morning :
looking down I could see the springing of her neck and
her breasts under her blue shift. Slept after lunch. Wish
I could sleep all day, like Roger, the dachshund. Another
boxing lesson after tea : my nose is not the right shape, and
I have hurt it rather badly. No bread for dinner : none
obtainable in bazaar. Reilly taught me higher mathema-
tics until he saw I was asleep.

“ Thursday. Did Muller’s exercises this morning. Turks
are getting suspicious of my exercising. We expect to be
searched soon. I know they want to get some of us : they
think that people who skip, wash in cold water, hit each
other, and bleed at the nose for pleasure must be mad
enough to try to do a bunk. There are not many internal
difficulties, but once out of Afionkarahissar, what
happens ? How could we avoid brigands ? How carry
food enough for a journey of two hundred miles over
mountains ? How get a boat at the coast ? These are
difficult problems. I think it is better to wait : a chance
may turn up of disguising oneself and travelling to Smyrna.
Or we may be sent somewhere else. I should like to escape
with Peter if I could — ^he’s a splendid fellow. Fed eagle

OUT OF GREAT TRIBULATION 165

owl on a mouse after tea. When are we going to be let
out of this bloody garden ? . . .“

And so on, ad infinitum.

I was wrong about escaping, and merely reflected the
opinion of the senior officers in the camp, who were
strongly against such adventures. They preached sub-
mission to the Turks, lest we should be straifed again, and
their views prevailed, for discipline had bred in us the
habit of believing what we were told.

Later, some officers were persuaded to give their parole
in return for better treatment : that they should have
done so was — and is — incomprehensible to me, for by
absolving the Turks from the necessity of guarding us we
released soldiers for the firing line. A handful of deter-
mined prisoners at Afionkarahissar might have over-
powered the guards, seized their arms, cut the important
reiilway line between Constantinople and Palestine which
ran close to our houses, and joined forces with the bands
of brigands and deserters in the neighbouring hills. This
sounds impossible, but the experience of prisoners escap-
ing from other camps shows that we might have succeeded.

Had we managed to obtain some weapons, we would
have been a thorn in the Turkish flank : at least a brigade
would have been required to recapture us, and before it
had been mobilised some at least of the escapers might
have reached Cyprus or Mitylene. Three or four men in
the camp would have been apt for such an enterprise :
they had indeed contemplated it, and it is a thousand
pities that it was not attempted. The older I grow the less
I regret my sins of commission : it is those of omission
which pain me.

Believing physical escape to be impossible, I was driven

GOLDEN HORN

1 66

back on my mental resources, which stood the strain
badly.

There was philosophy, but a discussion of the elan vital
over the teacups was a pale substitute for life. For a time
I worked at a novel, but there was always the danger that
it would be seized by the Turks, who were suspicious of
any writing. Yoga should have been my strength and
solace, and would have been, had I not made a small
initial mistake.

In another book I have told of how I practised the
“ head-stand,” the hhastrika breath, and a writhing mudra.
Undoubtedly it was at this time that I was first driven
back upon myself, and therefore tempted to explore the
means whereby the psyche may be unveiled through the
co-operation of lungs, imagination, and viscera. My guru
in Benares had given me enough knowledge to enable me
to make a start. I reached a certain point, but was then
confronted with a blank waU.

So simple is the first step on the path to the Kingly
Wisdom, that few of us in the West will take it. There
must be purity within as well as without, of the body as of
the soul, the two being but aspects of one illusion — the
dualistic illusion of the Self as Personality. Only when the
Self is dissolved in the ocean of Monism may reality be
seen ; but meanwhile a constricted mind produces a con-
stricted bowel, and vice versa. Baptism by Water must
precede baptism by Fire and the Holy Ghost.

If instead of expending any energy in trying to assimilate
the Universal Cosmic Consciousness I had devoted the
same time to dissipating first the universal clogging
constipation under which my system suffocated, I might
have become a Yogi, and I should certainly have been
happier. But no one had ever taught me about the psychic

OUT OP GREAT TRIBULATION 167

importance of the bowels except my guru, and I had not
understood him in this regard.

My breathing stimulated the heart, but served only to
whip up the toxins within me ; while my head-stands
washed the thyroid in blood that was thick with the
debris of disease. All I had to do was to fast for a few days
on the excellent fruits of the country, and wash out my
lower colon with two quarts of tepid water. Had I done
so, the remainder of this book would have been written
differently, or not at all, for my adventures would have
been in that other country “ most dear to them that
love her, most great to them that know ” : the land
whose bounds increase “ soul by soul, and silently.”

God is not mocked, nor are the bowels of His creatures,
which arc a part of Him as important as the brain. Disas-
sociation of the functions of the body may lead to startling
temporary advances in knowledge (this is an age of dan-
gerous specialisation) but such conquests are unstable and
disintegrated, like so much of modern civilisation : har-
monious thinking must be done with the midriff working
in conjunction with the lungs and brain. In such thinking
there is rhythm, and all rhythm, from walking to the
wonder of the Soul exploring the forest of the past until
she knows that she is Narcissus, entails a controlled dis-
turbance of the physical equilibrium, an interplay between
conscious and unconscious. There can be no thought and
no mysticism which is not based on the body. Our roots
are in the good clean earth, though our branches reach to
the farthest stars.

Christ and Muhammad and Buddha fasted many days
before they taught mankind : the greatest of the great
teachers did not neglect their physical bodies, nor exalt the
brain above the instinct : it is this stiff-necked generation

GOLDEN HORN

l68

that has done so. Truth cannot be acquired without
feeling-realisation : to reach it we must do something more
than turn printed pages, listen with dull ears, wag auto-
intoxicated tongues.

But belief in the brain dies hard. Bodivere, Ethelwulf
and I did little but read and talk. Books are very tempting
to me : I absorb them through the eyes without having
to tremble and sweat : I pack their print away in my
head, and there it is, ready to re-issue in modified form on
the next convenient occasion without the trouble of
thinking. Talking is equally attractive to some people :
having stated a good argument, they convince themselves
that it is true because it is logical.

Bodivere,for instance, convinced himself and many others
that Men Do Not Need Women. We wanted to believe that
what he said was right, though some of us had our doubts.

He opened the debate by pointing out that some of the
greatest men in all ages and in every sphere of life had
been bachelors. He admitted that we didn’t know much
about their private lives and that it was possible that they
had not been chaste, but the fact remained that great men
went their own way, despite the wiles of women. Napo-
leon didn’t retire when Josephine was unfaithful. Keats
went on writing in spite of Fanny Brawn. Both Sir Isaac
Newton and John Ruskin were impotent. Of course men
could live without women : sex was only one aspect of the
Life Force, and not the most important. Women only
exercised a paramount influence in our lives when we
were idle. Given a job of any kind which had to be done
with the whole soul’s will, and there was no time or wish
for sex, (Applause.)

But although the physical presence of Woman was
comparatively unimportant, continued Bodivere, she

OUT OF GREAT TRIBULATION 169

remained our inspiration : a strong love, like a strong
animal, knew how to wait. Our present separation would
make us appreciate women all the more (“ You bet ! ”) —
all the more truly from having forced us to sublimate
desire. The Puritan spirit had made England great ; and
it was coming again to us, thank God ! We couldn’t live
without the inspiration of women (“ We wouldn’t be
bom ! ”) Yes, no one denied the need for women (cer-
tainly the Puritans did not, they merely put the sex act in
its proper place in the scheme of life) but we could do
without women for a time ; and the discipline did us good.
Didn’t our life here prove it ? Who wanted women in this
camp ? Not he, for one ! Absence enabled us to train our
passions and make them supple. Woman’s place was the
home. She was the compass-needle of civilisation, and a
compass was a delicate instrument that had to be insu-
lated : humanity would lose its sense of direction if
women neglected their own sphere for the sordid and
insensate struggles by which men tried to justify their
existence. (Hear ! Hear ! )

The next speaker said that he had never heard such
absolute tripe as the assertion that great men didn’t need
women. Napoleon had been quoted : well, Napoleon used
to ride into camp after a victory bellowing like a bull, and
for the same reason. And think of Muhammad : he had
satisfied ten women in a night. What about Nelson and
the Duke of Wellington and Byron and Shelley and
Renoir and Rodin ? No painter could portray the human
body unless he had had intercourse with it, and it was the
same with all artists. Now we weren’t artists here, nor
were we great men, but neither were we eunuchs.
Asceticism was a slave doctrine, which marked the deca-
dence of nations as of individuals. We managed to get

170 GOLDEN HORN

on without women here, admittedly. But what sort of
life were we leading? Would we drink as we did and
quarrel and argue and talk smut (“ Speak for yourself ! ”)
and waste our time if we had the civilising and stimulating
presence of women in our midst ? Of course not ! Look
over the shoulder of any successful man, and you will see
the eyes of the woman who has inspired him. Women
brought more to birth than babies : they made their
lovers anew. Sex was not over-rated : it was the central
fact of life. The world was full of dangerous celibates of
both sexes, unsatisfied in their own natures and therefore
bringing cruelty and muddle and hysteria into the lives
of others. St. Paul had said that it was better to marry
than to burn, and Christ had been more indulgent to the
woman taken in adultery than to the Scribes and
Pharisees.

These sentiments made the audience buzz like an
irritated hive. When the noise had subsided, I rose, and
wanted to say that we should be taught in boyhood some-
thing of the splendour possible in sex. (“ How ? ”) I did
not know exactly how it could be done, but Shakespeare
had given us several hints : in Romeo and Juliet for
instance. Schoolmasters and clergymen were mostly in-
experienced, and brought up in a stupid tradition

There was much more in my mind, but I am a bad
speaker, and I was acutely conscious of the tortured
thoughts in the atmosphere. Until one has lived in a com-
munity where idleness forces Everyman upon the atten-
tion of Everyman, one has no idea of the dark turmoil
behind human masks. I felt an electrical tension in the
atmosphere. We wanted to lead sane lives. But the civilis-
tion which produced the Industrial Age and the Great
War was insane, putrescent at its core through neglect of

OUT OF GREAT TRIBULATION I7I

sex : it demanded, like the Sultans, a tribe of eunuchs as
the guardians and preservers of its splendour.

The debate dragged on. We had none of us heard of
Freud. All the obvious ideas were paraded, with more or
less skill.

A dreary youth told us, with frequent reference to his
notes, that we were certainly up against the problem here :
there were no women in this camp : we might dream of
our sweethearts and wives

He was interrupted at this point by a soldier servant
(a privileged person, who was cook, laundryman, car-
penter, and general handyman) with a remark of such
devastating cogency that it cannot be printed.

The speaker sat down as if he had been stabbed, and
the meeting dispersed, chuckling.

None of us had referred to the realities of perversion,
although only a few days previously news had come to us
that a young soldier had been raped by the Comman-
dant, Muzloom Bey : the boy — ^he was scarcely more than
twenty years old — ^had been held down on the office table
by two sergeants while Muzloom worked his will.

* * * *

I remember sitting by a brazier that winter with a group
of friends, listening to the soft voice of an Irishman sing-
ing :

“ Sweet life, if life were stronger.

Earth clear of years that wrong her,

Then two things might live longer.

Two sweeter things than they :

Delight, the rootless flower.

And love, the bloomless bower,

Delight that lives an hour
And love that lives a day.’^

GOLDEN HORN

172

Swinburne ! Idol of my adolescence ! His words rang
strangely here.

We had heard and seen something of the Kut prisoners.
Thirteen thousand had been captured : scarce five
thousand survived their marches and prisons : they had
been clubbed, stripped, mutilated : their bones were
strewn in the deserts between Baghdad and Aleppo.

Some of the survivors had arrived so dazed that they
could not speak, so enfeebled by hunger that they could
not carry their tiny bundles. Sometimes a group of four
or five emaciated men had passed underneath our win-
dows bearing a coffinless corpse on a stretcher : skeletons
alive, carrying a skeleton to the end of its long journey.

* * * *

No doubt we all became rather queer as the winter of
1916 turned into the spring of 1917. But I had recovered
my health, and I thought. It is time, it is past high time
that I escaped.

The Turks, always suspicious of my habits of exercise
and writing, demanded that I should give my parole. I
refused, and after I had composed some noble documents
of protest in French, declaring that their action was illegal,
I was suddenly transferred, with some likerminded friends,
to a special “ strafees’ ” house in the upper part of the
town.

Here we remained in close confinement, with roll-calls
four times a day and constant inspections and searches,
tmtil the summer had passed. We might have been very
miserable, living so close together, with no exercise or
diversions, but we were not, for planning to escape gave
a zest to life ; also we were beginning to feel that the
Allies were really winning the war.

OUT OF GREAT TRIBULATION I73

America had been on our side for six months, and the
New World was already righting the balance of the Old to
some purpose in France. Russia had collapsed, but Maude
was beyond Baghdad, astride the Tigris and- Euphrates,
and Allenby was advancing in Palestine. When we heard
of the capture of Jerusalem, we drank two bottles of
whisky at a bottle, and ate a goose whose price was
;{^i. At this time (Christmas 1917) a loaf of bread cost
IS, %d., tea was ,^10 a pound, wood £2 a plank, and fire-
wood almost unobtainable.

Never have I felt intenser cold. Three feet of snow lay
in our street, and did not melt for more than two months.
The plaster of the outer walls of our house had peeled off,
so that icy blasts penetrated through the walls and some-
times howled through the rooms, for the paper -windows
we had impro-vised (to replace unobtainable glass) fre-
quently burst through weight of snow. Water froze in our
glasses as we sat at supper, and some bottles of beer which
I had been keeping for a treat became solid blocks of
amber ice, better to look at than to swallow.

In the middle of January 1918 a succession of earth-
quakes would have favoured escaping, but the snowbound
countryside dissuaded us from making an attempt. When
the weather moderated, the -vigilance of the Turks in-
creased. Yet by now they had become dimly aware of
what had been for some time apparent to us ; their coun-
try was doomed. Turkish deserters had reached the num-
ber of 300,000. Enver Pasha had thrown away 78,000 men
in the Caucasus in 1915 and 60,000 in 1916. More than
half a million Armenians had been killed. The National
Debt was 330,000,000 liras. Foodstuffs were mounting
vertiginously in price. The Emir of Mecca had sided with
the English. The insiuxectionary movement in Palestine

GOLDEN HORN

174

was gaining ground. In the Lebanon, Syrians were eating
grass and dying of famine and the gibbet. Baghdad had
fallen long ago, and the ammunition of the Thunderbolt
Army, assembled to retake it, had been blown sky high at
Haidar Pasha railway station — ^two hundred and fifty
carloads of it.

I thought, Unless I escape soon, the war will be over.
And as the route to the coast was still impassable, I deter-
mined to reach Constantinople, by foul means if I could
not get there by fair.

My first step was to buy two pounds of raw opium
wrapped in a cabbage leaf. With great secrecy (for Mrs.
Grundy had her say even in our camp) I enquired from
a French officer whom I knew to be a smoker whether he
would instruct me in the distillation of poppy juice, and
its subsequent use. Although he demurred at first, he
soon changed his mind, for every addict must have his
neophyte.

Under his direction I bought myself a copper saucepan,
and boiled my crude leaf in it for two hours, until it had
become a dark, viscous mass. To this I added more water,
and filtered it lengthily into another container, boiling
down the filtrate until it had become of the consistency
of cream. Although I was as mysterious as an alchemist
over these doings, nobody failed to recognise the odour
they provoked. My friends thought I was going to the
dogs : some avoided me, others looked away. I let it be
known that I could not sleep at night, that I considered
escape to be impossible, that I expected the war to last
another two years, and that I intended to dream my days
away. No one argued with me : we tried to mind our
own business at Afion.

OUT OB' GREAT TRIBULATION 175

Whenever I was allowed to visit the French house, I
took the opportunity to smoke a pipe or two with my
fldend. But I soon realised — ^in the pit of my stomach as
well as the top of my head — ^that I did not have the
“ opium temperament.”

During my early days in India, when curiosity burned
at white heat, I tried all sorts of stimulants, from port to
crude ether, and from bhang to betel-nut. They all proved
diverting, more or less (I trust that it is not disrespectful
to the superb port of 1841 to say that it was amusing)
except opium and cocaine : these two frightened and
horrified me, for they seem to act directly on the higher
centres of the brzdn.

But no one, even the most learned doctor (indeed the
more learned the less likely he is to know of life) should
be didactic about drugs. I believe it was good for me as
a boy to have smoked bhang, for it swept me on its pinions
from the inhibitions of my upbringing to a world where
passion is respected ; and I am grateful to opium, much
as I dislike its effects, for having opened a door which
would otherwise have remained shut. Nowadays I respect
my psyche too much to play tricks with it : the world as
it is is too wonderful to waste time by dreaming of another,
but I recognise the fact that stimulants of some kind are
necessary to some people during some stages of their
lives.

Probably the juice of the grape is best for the West, and
that of the poppy for the East. For the rest, I know tee-
totallers who manufacture stronger and more noxious
alcohols out of the starches and sugars fermenting in their
intestines than any made in vineyards ; and bromide
topers, aspirin addicts, magnesia maniacs, tea debauchees
more reprehensible than the hearty septuagenarians of

lyb GOLDEN HORN

Central Asia who take a whiff of hemp before their meals.

If humanity had never poisoned itself by trying to live
more vividly than its norm, the world would be a dull
place to-day. And if I had never smoked opium, I should
have missed an exciting year of life.

Now there was a certain Samian youth in Afionkara-
hissar who was a smoker, and I suspected him also of other
vices.

He had been educated in Robert College, and was now
a clerk and general factotum on the Commandant’s staff.
One of his duties was to censor the prisoners’ letters and
books : I had several times contrived to make him a small
present in return for permission to retain some suspected
volume, and I believed that he might be prevailed upon
either to use his influence with the Commandant to have
me sent to Constantinople for hospital treatment, or else
that he might help me to escape in some more direct
way.

My plan was flexible : I would make friends with him
and decide on my plan of action when I had explored
the ground ; but as it happened, my way was made clear
with great suddenness.

The Samian came to give me some letters on a day
when I had been smoking in the French house : the aroma
hung about my clothes : he noticed it at once. Looking
into my eyes (their pupils were contracted to pin-points)
he said : “ You are sometimes coucM d gauche^ eh ? ”

I admitted it.

“ We must smoke together,” he said.

This seemed too good to be true.

** But will the Commandant allow it ? ”

I can do what I like,” he laughed. ‘‘ You leave it to
me!”

OUT OF GREAT TRIBULATION I77

I showed him the bamboo-stemmed pipe I had made
for myself out of a tiny porcelain jar, in whose side I had
pierced a hole ; and my green opium Izimp ; and the
darning-needle on which the drug was roasted. The pro-
perties carried conviction. We agreed that we woxild meet
that very night.

After lock-up, I slipped out of my house, with my opium
and its paraphernzilia hidden under my overcoat, A
specicdly-suborned sentry brought me to the Samian’s
house in a side street.

I was shown upstairs into a room so dark that although
I had come from the unlighted street it was some seconds
before I could see that it was thickly carpeted, but other-
wise bare except for two divans : my host was lying on
one, looking large-hipped and effeminate : he motioned
me silently to the other. The blinds were drawn : only the
glimmer of a wick floating in oil lit the wreaths of blue
smoke which curled down round it.

I lay down on my left elbow, facing him (for he had
politely taken the less comfortable position on his right
side) and after arranging some pillows as I had seen the
Frenchman do, I took off my boots and put on the slip-
pers which I had brought in my pocket : then I laid out
my gear.

“ How many pipes do you smoke a day ? ” asked my
friend.

“ I iised to smoke thirty,” I said boldly, “ when I was
in practice in India.”

“ That’s nothing,” he answered, “ I smoke seventy.
Come, you must try my opium ; I make it myself, as you
do. I think it is the best in Turkey.”

“ Who will prepare our pipes ? ”

“ We win do that ourselves,” he answered.

Mh

GOLDEN HORN

178

“ I — I am used to an attendant. In India there used to
be a boy called a charriburdar, who handed me my pipes
already cooked, and here I have been smoking with the
French.”

“ There are no boys here, worse luck, and I never let
a woman come near the place. But I’ll show you myself.
Half the pleasure is lost if another hand prepares the con-
fiture. See, you take a drop of opium — so — on the point of
the needle, and holding it over the flame you turn and
turn it gently until it swells and expands and glows with
its hidden life. From a black drop it changes to a glowing
bubble of crimson. Then you cool it again, moulding and
pressing it back to a little pellet upon the glass of the lamp-
shade. Then again you cook it, and again you cool it. Only
experience can tell when it is ready to smoke. It is an art,
like other arts. I would rather cook opium than make love.
Wouldn’t you ? ”

His brown eyes met mine — dimly in the half light —
and I did not answer him.

“ Both sexes bore me. Now take your pipe,” he
continued, stretching out languorously, and guiding my
hand with long, white, ringed fingers whose nails
glistened with vermeil des angles, “ and heat the little
hole, so that the opium will stick, and put your needle
— so — ^into the hole, and then pull it out, leaving a pellet
behind. There it is, ready for you. Tell me what you
think of it.”

I held my pipe over the flame, drawing in a long and
apparently grateful breath.

“ Deeper and deeper,” he said, “ then hold it. That’s
right. I see you know. . . .”

I thought. My breathing exercises haven’t been use-
less : the stuff is reaching my toe-nails.

OUT OF GREAT TRIBULATION 179

I lay back with heavy-lidded eyes.

After a full half-minute I expelled the smoke through
my nostrils and murmured : “ Divine, a marvellous
flavour ! ”

I told him of bhang, with its property of annihilating
time and space, and of Masheen whose graceful gestures
had woven themselves into the pattern of my adolescence,

“ I don’t want anything better than this,” he said,
“ except a glass of Mavrodaphne when the Moment
comes, I keep some by me : the feel of it in my throat is
more satisfying than any human touch. Women don’t
understand. They become excited by opium. They can’t
divide themselves as we can : they don’t know how to
stimulate and restrain the mind until it mounts, mounts,
mounts. ...”

» And then ? ”

“ Then peace. You know. Nothing except peace. It is
better than any common ecstasy. I reach the summit of
bliss, drink a glass of wine, remain poised in heaven.”

“ I know,” I said, although I didn’t.

That evening, I smoked ten small pipes, and sipped
two glasses of his strong, resinous wine.

Gradually I felt released from terrestrial sensations.
Gravity first diminished, then vanished : I floated over
my body, seeing its inner life with a fond detachment :
gladness surrounded me : light appeared in crystals and
crosses of pure and flashing colour, and sound in har-
monies which reached the skies rather than the ear.

Now I was in Winchester Cathedral as an invisible
spirit : at one moment I filled the whole nave, then I was
a speck in soaring vaults of cosmic architecture : I was
always near but never reached some ineffable secret. Then
I saw the sapphire goddess, the Great Mother of the

GOLDEN HORN

i8o

Hindus, slender waisted, full breasted, with jewelled hips
that sparkled with all the world’s fertility. It was a shock
to find her in that cold, proud place : she was terrible
and beautiful, teeming with infinite maternities, utterly
out of place in Winchester. It seemed to me that something
must be done about it, and I grew anxious : she could not
remain with our Christian chivalry. . . .

A heavy step upon the stair caused my companion to
rise from his divan with an agility I had not thought he
possessed. As for myself, I was almost incapable of move-
ment : I was conscious that the door had opened and that
the Samian was talking rapidly in Turkish, but I did not
want either to look or to understand : I had drunken the
draught that Menelaus gave to his guests, and like them
was oblivious to all outer seeming.

But presently silence fell on the disputants. I felt
myself gently shaken.

“ You must go back to your house, sir,” said the
Samian.

“ I don’t think I can walk.”

“ I will help you.”

It was with agony that I dragged my mind away from
Winchester and myself to my feet.

There stood the Commandant, regarding me quizzic-
ally, with fez pushed back on his head, slapping his boot
with a riding whip. The sight sobered me.

Muzloom pulled out his case and offered me a cigarette.
I took one without thinking : the Samian offered me
light. Then I felt angry, and ashamed of the position in
which I had placed myself. But it was too late to alter it,
and perhaps it was just as well. “ Vengeance is mine,
saith the Lord.”

“ If you like to stay I can manage it,” said the Samian

OUT OF GREAT TRIBULATION l8l

in a low voice ; “ he’s drunk.” (Muzloom did not under-
stand French).

“ What for ? ”

The Samian giggled.

I felt a curious inclination to remain, in order to see
what would happen, but drugged though I was, I was
not such a fool.

I moved slowly to the door. Holding on to it, I looked
back : the Commandant had thrown his fez on the floor
and vfas lying on the Samian’s divan with his tunic and
the top of his breeches open : he had uncorked the bottle
of Mavrodaphne and was sniffing it and smacking his
lips.

Then I stumbled downstairs.

The sentry was waiting for me in the street. Drawing
breaths of good clean air, I began to feel much better.
But the Samian caught up with me before I reached my
house.

“ You ought to come back,” he said. “ Muzloom is in
an amusing mood.”

“ No. I’m sleepy.”

“ Well, is there anything you want to get out of him ? ”

So the opportunity had come ! My brain worked
quickly.

“ Yes, there is, but you can ask him better than I.
Listen. You know I used to box. Well, I injured my nose
rather badly, and now I can’t breathe through my right
nostril. Any doctor will certify that I have a bone twisted
in it, but only a good surgeon can put it right by an
operation.”

“ I see,” said the Samian, “ you want to go to Con-
stantinople ? ”

“ Exactly. Can it be arranged ? ”

GOLDEN HORN

182

“ Easily. Leave it to me. Only — may I be frank ? ”

“ Need you ask ? ”

“ Well, these doctors are mercenary people.”

“ Of course. I’ll take care of that, God bless you ! ”

“ Here you are at your house. Sleep well and don’t
worry. I envy you seeing Pera. ...”

He wasn’t a bad fellow, that Samian, considering. . . .

CHAPTER VIII

CONSTANTINOPLE

After a two-day journey by slow train, I arrived at the
Haidar Pasha terminus of the Baghdad Railway with a
medical certificate in my pocket (it had cost me fifty
pounds sterling) and a letter to the Dutch Minister (who
was representing British interests at that time in Turkey)
describing the crimes of Muzloom and the sufferings of our
Kut men : this document I had sewn for safety into the
lining of my waistcoat.

It was dark before I reached the Haidar Pasha hospital,
and I found there another British officer from another
camp also waiting for admittance. We were both searched
by Turkish police, and to my disgust the letter to the
Dutch Minister was found, as it made a crackling sound
when I stripped.

“ I put it there to keep my back warm,” I explained.

“ You will be quite warm in hospital,” said the officer
of the law, looking at the envelope upside down,” and
you csin have your letter back after it has been seen by
the Censor. But I see you have brought a razor : that is
not allowed.”

I protested, hoping to create a diversion, but he only
took away my scissors also.

“ No cutting instrument is allowed to political prisoners
since His Imperial Highness Prince Yussuf-Izzedin
Effendi committed suicide,” he said.^

1 Yussiof-Izzedin, the Heir Apparent, had recently opened his arteries
with a pair of scissors, as his uncle, Abdul Aziz, had done. But ^ere was
a rumour that he had been shot by Enver Pasha because of his friendliness
with France* “ On I* a suicicUj* said the cynical Christian population.

GOLDEN HORN

184

“ I am not a poKtical prisoner ! ”

“ Nevertheless we should be blamed if you committed
suicide,” was the gloomy answer.

“ Look here, take everything you like except the letter.
Between friends ”

“ Yok, jok, effendi ! ”

He followed the hated negative by taking away my
wallet also, which I had drawn from my hip pocket to
add point to my suggestion. Fortunately, most of my
money was in Turkish banknotes hidden in various places
where it would not be found — the soles of my shoes, the
core of a shaving stick, and in my crutch — a hundred
pounds in all. But money would avail me little if I were
sent to prison, as I certainly would be when the letter
was read.

Then a bottle of gin was discovered in my comrade’s
luggage : immediately the searchers clustered round him,
and I was left alone for a moment. I slit open the letter to
the Dutch Minister, substituted some toilet paper for its
contents, which I hid with my money in a part of my
person where the Turks would not look for it, and left
the envelope lying where I found it. When the policeman
returned to pick it up he did not notice that I had
tampered with it.

It was in a gay mood that I donned the hospital night-
shirt and was put to bed. The two other occupants of
my ward appeared to be asleep : one was a Greek, the
other a youthful Turk, Late that night an Armenian
officer was carried in, with severe wounds in the head and
neck due to a prematurely exploded bomb. He was laid
flat on a bed and began to choke. No one came near him.

It seemed obvious that if he was propped up by pillows
he would be able to breathe. But no one propped him

CONSTANTINOPLE

185

up. I called for a hospital orderly and suggested that
this should be done : he said ‘‘ Yarin^^ But ^^yarin ”
never came for the poor officer : I did not like to interfere
with him myself : he lay silent, suffocating. In the morn-
ing a screen was put round his bed.

How the sick survived in Haidar Pasha hospital was a
mystery, because no one attended to their wants unless
they were strong enough to scream. Screaming, however,
was a habit to which the patients were not averse : brave
men howled while their wounds were being dressed, and
I came later to understand why : the mutton-fisted dressers
expected it. To bear pain in silence is only a convention.

To add to my happiness, who should appear in the
place of the dead Armenian but Peter, the friend at
Afionkarahissar with whom I had long hoped to escape.
Now I knew that my luck had turned.

Our day began with rice and broth at six in the morn-
ing. At nine the visiting doctor made his rounds, and the
patients who needed medicines clamoured for them. At
mid-day there was more rice and broth, with occasional
lumps of meat. The afternoon was devoted to walking in
the garden and the evenings to talk. After two years
of Afionkarahissar every moment of this routine was
exciting and delightful.

There was a great friendliness in that hospital, and a
large measure of liberty within its boundaries. When one
walks about in a nightshirt, one begins to realise the truth
that all men are equal. We did what we liked, smoked
continually, ate what we could induce the attendants to
buy for us. We were all jettison of the war, broken with
fighting, rotten with disease, or merely shamming sick :
no one bothered about us as long as we did not bother
the doctors : we forgathered in the corridors, gossiping

i86

GOLDEN HORN

about the news from the various fronts, making fun of the
Germans, or planning some way of bringing drink into
hospital. It was a childish life, well suited to my circum-
stances and conditions.

The Greek in my ward, who had been a Smymiote
financier and was now alleged to be a lunatic, told me
that he could make a million liras on the Bourse in a day
if only the Turks would set him free. I daresay he was
right : fortunes were being won and lost on the meteoric
fluctuations of paper money. The Turkish cadet, who had
something the matter with his hip and had to wear a
truss, used to amuse himself by impersonating a German
General ordering his dinner in a restaurant. In spite of his
nightshirt he managed to convey the impression of swag-
ger, and stays, and fat neck. Clattering a stick behind him
for a sword, he used to stride up the room, seat himself
stiffly, call for a waiter, glare at an imaginary menu and
order — a dish of haricot beans. “ Des haricots ! ” he
snapped, with hand on sword hilt ; he did this every day,
but it continued to amuse us.

Peter and I enjoyed our first few days in hospital im-
mensely. The air was electric with intrigue : an enormous
game of hide-and-seek was in progress in Constantinople :
half the Christians in the city were passing under false
identity papers : the nearer the Germans came to Paris
the more persistent were the stories of their defeat. Secret
presses were engaged in printing broadsheets of revolu-
tion. The Greeks were planning a rising in the Phanar
quarter and would march in a body on Aya Sophia :
the Armenians (those who were left) were meditating re-
venge : Enver Pasha had made a monopoly in milk and a
corner in velvet : the funds of the Committee of Union
and Progress had been secretly transferred to Switzerland

CONSTANTINOPLE

187

where they had been exchanged for francs at half their
face value. Everyone was tired of short rations, restric-
tions, diminishing purchasing power of money, coercion
from the Germans. Even highly-placed officials were
openly disaffected : the Sultan himself was angry with
the Young Turks, and would make peace if he were not
a very sick man : his successor would certainly do so :
thus ran the voices of rumour in the hospital. Much of
this was true, but nothing was too absurd to be believed
in Constantinople during the summer of 1918.

We came to the conclusion that if wc could find a safe
place in which to hide, escape would afterwards be easy.
Well-disposed Christians were many, but how were we to
put ourselves in touch with them, and know that they were
faithful as well as friendly ?

From conversation with Greek and Armenian patients
in the hospital we learned about the White Lady, who
was something of a legendary figure in the city, famous
for her goodness to the afflicted : an Edith Cavell, but
more fortunate than her, in that she had to dezil with an
Oriental people.

The White Lady lived in Pera, where she looked after
two elderly relatives belonging to a family well known in
the Near East. She was nominally an interned enemy
subject, but practically she could go where she liked, al-
though she was often shadowed. Her freedom was due in
part to her many kindnesses to all classes of the population
in the past, and in part to her knowledge of the Turkish
language, and also to an incident which occurred towards
the end of 1914. A Prussian officer had come to her house,
demanding admittance, for he said that from the attic
communication might be maintained by signalling with
relicts of the British Embassy staff, whose quarters the

l88 GOLDEN HORN

house overlooked. The White Lady protested against the
intrusion.

“ I must obey orders,” said the Prussian, as he mounted
the stairs. “ I suppose you would rather have me here than
a barbarian Turk ? ”

“ I would much rather have a Turk,” the White
Lady answered.

Her words spread like wUdfire through the city, from
the Sublime Porte to the fish bazaars, and all Constan-
tinople was delighted with her spirit. From that day to
this her prestige had grown. She was now loved by
everyone except the most rabid Young Turks, for she had
great tact as well as infinite pluck.

Would she, we wondered, be able to tell us where to
hide?

We thought she would, but to meet this good angel
would be impossible until we had been entered as “ con-
valescent ” on the hospital register. Up to this time we
had been very kindly neglected by the doctors : it would
now be necessary to call attention to ourselves. So I began
to develop neurotic symptoms, and walked in my sleep,
squeaking and gibbering. Two British prisoners — the
famous Jones and Hill — were already posing as lunatics
with some success, and I thought that if I had to submit
to siny operation the surgery of the mind would be less pain-
ful than that of the body. I was soon undeceived, however.

In the waiting-room of the mental specialist I found
the poor Smyrniotc financier in mortal fear of being sent
to the lunatic asylum : he was blubbering, and scratch-
ing his buttocks like a monkey. There was also a negroid
creature who slawered at the lips and blew bubbles
with them ; and a man who thought he was a horse,
and pranced about on all fours, neighing.

CONSTANTINOPLE

189

The psychiatrist held up a finger, tracing patterns in
the air, and told me to watch it closely. While I watched
it, he watched me.

“ I can see what you are doing perfectly,” I said.

“Far from it,” he answered. “You are not follow-
ing it with your eyes. I must observe you for a few
days.”

“ Not here ? ”

“ Yes, here.”

Now this was exactly what I had wanted, but my heart
failed me : there was too narrow a margin between my
present state and his world.

" It is really my nose which is preventing me from
sleeping,” I said. “ Once that is put right . .

“ Very well, you’d better see the nose, throat and ear
doctor first, then come back.”

I went, feeling extremely sane, and determined not
to return.

The nose specialist sat on a high stool by a window,
with a reflector screwed into his right eye, and a thing
like a glove-stretcher in his hand. A glass table beside him
was strewn with instruments. Behind him, two assistants
stood in robes of blood-stained white. The room was full
of frightened soldiers.

A deaf old man sat down on a lower stool, in front of
the doctor. The glove-stretcher darted into his ear. The
old man gibbered in reply to a question : the glove-
stretcher darted into the other ear : another question :
more gibbering : his ears were gently boxed and he was
sent away.

The next case had an immense goitre : the doctor
fondled it : then the attendants pulled off all the patient’s
clothes and made him to hop roimd the room. Removing

GOLDEN HORN

190

his reflector, the doctor gazed thoughtfully at the shinny
shape pirouetting about, dictated a prescription, seized
the next soldier. Prescription and clothes were thrown at
the naked man, who walked out shivering, but thankful
to be released.

The victim now on the stool was so terrified that he col-
lapsed : the doctor did not give him a second look : one
of the attendants dragged him away as if he were a sack,
and left him in a corner ; meanwhile another patient had
been led forward.

After a few more cases had been examined, the attend-
ants pulled the limp body back to the doctor and held its
lolling head to the light while the glove-stretcher did its
work.

I was confident that I wouldn’t faint, but I didn’t
take my turn on the seat with a light heart. The surgeon
was alarmingly sudden ; already the room looked like a
shambles.

“ Deflected septum,” he pronounced.

“ I hurt my nose boxing,” I explained, “ and cannot
now breathe through it. I would like to stay ”

“ Can’t stay here,” he said incisively ; “ no time to deal
with your case. Next ! ”

“ But I can’t breathe through my nose.”

“ Breathe through your mouth, then ! ”

It was impossible to argue, so I took myself off with
suitable thanks, but determined that come what might I
would find some work for a surgeon to do — if possible a
more sympathetic one. But what ? Appendicitis ? Vari-
cose veins ? Gallstones ?

I was extremely healthy. Now that the surgeon had
refused to operate on my nose, I would probably be
bundled back to Afionkarahdssar at a moment’s notice.

CONSTANTINOPLE I9I

There was only one way out : it came to me as an in-
spiration. I asked to see the Chief Doctor, and told him a
long story. He listened to it politely and said that he
quite understood my position : I did not want to become
a Muhammedan immediately, but while I wzis consider-
ing my conversation he was ready to perform the neces-
sary physical initiation. Indeed, he had recently invented
a new and practically painless method of carrying it out,
and would like to demonstrate it to some visiting profes-
sors.

That evening, I found myself alone in a room next to
the surgical ward, and I dreamed of a dawn across the
poppy-fields of Afionkarahissar in 1917.

I was standing at a window looking over the station
road. A soldier came slouching down it : his heard was
grey : his cheeks were grey : he wore field-grey uniform :
his feet were wrapped in rags from which the toes pro-
truded : he dragged himself slowly to the train that would
take him away to the war.

I saw smoke above the tree-tops of the station, and
heard a whistle. With a jerk like a marionette, the old
man quickened his pace.

And now an ox-cart passed my window, creaking on its
archaic wheels. A white heifer drew it, and her shoulders
strained against her harness, for it was a heavy cart, but
she went forward willingly, resignedly : work was her
portion : she would live and die under the yoke : she licked
her cool muzzle, dusted flies with her neat tail, looked
forward with wistful eyes that seemed to see beyond her
working world. Somewhere she would find rest ; she was
symbol of all the driven souls who go forward unquestion-
ing to destiny, as the soldier with his pack was type of
voiceless millions who carry the burden of our civilisation.

GOLDEN HORN

192

We stagger on, I thought, under the bludgeonings of
chance, and but rarely lift our eyes to the dawn.

But the dawn is there, eternally miraculous and
renewed. I woke with it in my eyes, and found a dresser
and a barber who had come to prepare me for the
operation.

For some months I had not thought of Yoga, but now,
after the dresser and the barber had finished, I began the
Beetle Droning Breath, which sets up a vibration between
tongue and teeth, passing to the whole skeleton. I do not
know whether it was this which calmed me, but I felt
completely collected, holding a balance of the subtle and
grosser channels of awareness, so that I was vividly
percipient of everything about me, yet immune to pain.

That is what I believe to have been my state, but I
do know what drug the doctor used. My pulse rate was
120 beats to the minute.

Six students and two elderly men — the visiting profes-
sors, no doubt — watched the proceedings, which were
brief. I had time tG observe that they were all in white
coats, that the room gleamed with steel, nickel, enamel,
that the surgeon’s back radiated confidence (he was
washing his hands).

I lay on a metal couch, bare to the waist, thinking how
absurd it was that I shovdd be lying here, waiting to be
circumcised.

A screen was put before my eyes, which I removed.

“ Let him look if he likes,” said the surgeon, advancing
towards me with a hypodermic syringe. I did not feel
the injection at all, not even the prick of the needle.

He addressed the spectators in Turkish, making
sweeping motions with his lancet. Presently he leaned over
me, facing the way I 'was looking. His strong arm pressed

CONSTANTINOPLE I93

against my thigh and belly : I craned my neck to see what
he was doing ; he told me to lie still.

I tried to feel somethings but there was nothing to feel.
Nothing except the weight of a number of forceps.

The operation was over.

By a mere act of faith I could now become a Muham-
medan, and although I had not the least wish to do so, I
did desire to escape. Desires are often reached by winding
paths.

a|e ♦ ♦ a|t

Peter and I became convalescent together (he had
been treated for his ear) and we were together given
permission to attend Sunday Service in the English
Church in Pera.

Constantinople !

As we were ferried over to the European shore, the
three cities — Scutari, Pera, Stambul — and the three
waters — the iridescent Marmora, the silver ribbon of the
Bosphorus, and the caique-flecked Golden Horn — ^lay
round us in a glitter of white and green and silver.
Scutari and its suburbs were behind us in Asia : ahead, in
Stambul, a hundred minarets pointed upwards with so
clear and delicate an aspiration that they lifted the heart
with them and spoke more clearly than any words of that
inner strength which failed amongst the wranglers of
Byzantium but rose again amongst the warriors of
Muhammed. At the edge of the Marmora the sea-walls
gleamed like alabaster in the mirror at their feet, brooding
over their memories and treasure. Across the Golden
Horn, Pera sprawled amongst her cypresses.

Standing gorgeous and disdainful amidst her hills
and waters, Constantinople seemed human : she was a

Nh

GOLDEN HORN

194

courtesan of conquerors, a vampire living on the blood
of lovers. She had sapped the Romans, seduced the
Byzantines, leeched the Turks : now she awaited a new
lord.

Her women were here on the ferry, veiled and segre-
gated it is true, but so lightly veiled and so slightly
segregated that the barriers between us served but to
emphasize their great, liquid eyes, the delicate oval of
their faces, their proud litde feet glittering in the neatest
of Peirisian shoes.

With the life of the capital about us, we felt like men
from the moon walking up through the streets of Pera to
the English Church.

It was all like a dream again : destiny was taking
me into one queer place after another. Was I really
attending a Service of the Church of England? Was the
White Lady present, and would she, could she, speak to
us ?

After the blessing we lingered in our pews, watching
the people pass out. The White Lady was unmistakable :
she was the tall, graceful figure in serge who walked as if
born to a high destiny. We joined her as she passed down
the aisle, and told her who we were : she said that she had
hezird of our arrival.

“ Is there any news ? ” I asked.

“ The tide has turned in France. Here they’re finished.”

“ Can you give us an address where we could hide ? ”

“ I think so. I’ll ask ”

“ May we keep in touch with you ? ”

“ Yes, there is news I want you to take to England,”
she answered. “ Come to the Seraglio Gardens : I read
there every day— four o’clock

CONSTANTINOPLE I95

“ Haidi, effendim, kaide, haidS ! ” said our escort sergeant
as soon as he saw us at the door.

The White Lady had gone, and her last words were lost.
But she had given us more than hope : she had given us
faith and purpose. I thought. We are in the swim of great
events : who knows what message she wants us to take to
England ?

The last few days in hospital were vivid with anticipa-
tion. We were to be transferred to the suburb of Psamattia,
in Europe : could we manage to reach the rendezvous
on the way there ? Would we be allowed to speak to her if
we arrived ? And if we did succeed in hearing her plan,
how would we be able to execute what would be its first
condition — escape from Psamattia ? We considered these
questions anxiously during our last evening in the hospital
garden, looking across the blue waters of the Marmora to
Stambul, flushed with the loveliest tints of pink.

As night fell, the sea reflected a thousand lights from
the illuminated domes of the mosques — ^for it was Rama-
zan. But soon the crescent of the new moon would appear
over the dome of Aya Sophia as the sign to Islam that the
fast had ended and the time of feasting come. For us also,
we believed, days of rejoicing were nigh

Much was to happen to us between this moon and the
next.

On our journey to Psamattia, we were allowed no
opportunity to diverge from our path, for we were escorted
by no less than four armed sentries, and two Dog Collar
Men, as we called the special police whom we afterwards
came to know too well.

These constables wore a crescent tablet of brass upon

196 GOLDEN HORN

their chests, on which was written the word QUANUN,
meaning Law : they were sometimes — though not often —
the incorruptible censors of public morals. If a Turkish
officer was seen drinking alcohol, playing cards, talking
disrespectfully of the Germans, or indulging in any other
prohibited amusement, he was arrested by a Dog Collar
Man, and taken to prison, unless he could buy his freedom.
The power of these special police was great, and their
private profits in proportion. We tried to bribe our two,
but it was impossible ; mutual suspicion kept them aloof
from temptation.

In Psamattia, however, we found an indulgent Com-
mandant, who sympathised with our desire to study the
archaeology of the city, and was willing to give us an

afternoon out ” provided that he had some reasonable
explanation to offer for our absence in case those in
authority above him should enquire where we were.
Excuses came easily to us : we had both been inventing
them for years. We wanted to go to the dentist, and an
appointment with him was made for the following day.

Peter and I set out for the dentist’s in great fettle,
accompanied by a Dog Collar Man and two sentries* Our
appointment was for noon : afterwards we would eat, and
find ways of passing the time until we could meet the
White Lady. It was a very hot morning : we stopped for
some beer on the way, to test the temper of our escort.
The sentries drank with us, and to our relief the Dog
Collar Man also unbent, and recklessly sipped a glass of
lager

The dentist proved amiable, but inclined to be grasping.
He asked whether we would like our teeth pulled, stopped,
or merely polished ? We enquired his professional opinion

CONSTANTINOPLE 107

on the matter, but he answered that he was indifferent ;
our teeth were all right, but if we wanted to come again
he recommended us to have a couple of gold stoppings.
Otherwise he would be regretfully compelled to give us a
clean bill of health.

We chose the stoppings, and paid for them. Gold was
expensive in Constantinople, he explained ; but it was to
his credit that the only pain he inflicted on us was in
making us part with twenty liras each.

After the dentist, we drove to Pera where the five of us
had a hearty and expensive lunch (lobsters, omelettes,
mutton pilaff, yaghourt, peaches, coffee : the cost was
fifteen liras — about twelve pounds sterling at the then rate
of exchange) which put us all in an excellent humour for
shopping.

Our first visit was to a chemist’s shop, where we
bought some black hair dye, thinking it might be useful
for disguises, and knowing that the Turks would not
object since they used it themselves. Sandshoes, jack-
knives and chocolate (the latter in case we had to hide
in ruins where no food could be obtained) were also
obtainable without arousing much suspicion. But we
wanted rope, and maps of Constantinople and its sur-
roundings : neither of these articles could we ask for
openly. So we entered an ironmonger’s shop and asked
to see some buckets, explaining that we wanted them for
our morning baths. Having chosen a large one, I engaged
the attention of the sentries by asking the ironmonger for
a second-hand Mauser pistol which was displayed on
the counter : while they '^yokked ” indignantly, Peter
bought twenty fathoms of rope and put it in the bucket :
it was then covered over with innocent articles and given
to a hamal to carry behind us. The map was more difficult.

igS GOLDEN HORN

for our illiterate guardians objected to taking us into a
book-shop : I am sorry to say that I had to tear a map
from an old Baedeker displayed in a street stall, and
steal it.

At half-past three we took a cab back in the direction
of Psamattia, but stopped it on the way to refresh our-
selves at a cafe near the railway station at Sirkedji. We
ordered ices and beer for ourselves and our complacent
staff, who had every reason to be complacent, for we had
given them no trouble and had tipped them liberally as
well as feeding them sumptuously. They were willing to
do anything in reason, and nothing could have been more
natural than a desire for a stroll in the Seraglio Gardens.

But just then Peter began to get Spanish influenza,
which was raging in the city. The symptoms were sudden
and unmistakable : shivering, giddiness, weakness : it
was cruel luck to be prostrated at this vital moment, but
there was no help for it : I would go to the Gardens alone.

It was difficult to persuade the Dog Collar Man that
we should not go back at once : however, I did it with the
help of a banknote. The treasures of the Seraglio are
famous throughout the world. Even if I could not see the
Robe of the Prophet or the jewels of Suleiman the Mag-
nificent it was reasonable that I shovJd want to walk in
the park surrounding them, for it was (and still is) a
favourite pleasure ground of the city.

Punctually at four, the sentry and I were in the Seraglio
Gardens, near the Stambul entrance gate. I had promised
to be back by half-past four at latest.

We smoked our cigarettes under the shade of the great
plane trees. Thunder clouds hung low. Toilers of the city
passed, fanning themselves : Turkish officers carried
their heavy fur fezzes in their hand : civilians wore

CONSTANTINOPLE I99

handkerchiefs behind theirs : the veiled women seemed
jaded : their small feet and great eyes that usually twinkled
so brightly in the streets had grown respectively dusty
and dull with the oppression of the day. It was so hot that
even the pigeons were too exhausted to make love. My
sentry nodded.

And then, with an insouciant grace that was vivid in
my mind, a tall figure entered. She csirried a novel and a
litde tasselled bag ; and was dressed in a thin white serge
coat and skirt. I watched her walking to a bench opposite,
some two hundred yards away. If she saw me, she gave
no hint of it, but sat down and began reading, apparently
unconscious of the world about her.

With a glance at my sentry, I rose and strolled very
slowly away. He woke at once, and followed. I stopped to
examine a myrtle hedge, yawned, lit a cigcurette, told him
that it was too hot for exercise : he agreed emphatically.
I said that we would sit for a little in the shade on the
other side of the road, and then return to the ca£6. We
wandered across, and I sank into the seat beside my
guardian angel. There was no room for the sentry, so he
obligingly lay down on the grass behind us. I thought.
This is most extraordinary 1

Without taking her eyes from her novel, the White Lady
murmured that I was to speak low and look in the
opposite direction.

Then she asked where my companion was, and on
hearing he had the ’flu, she told me that she also had
been attacked by it at the very moment that we had
spoken to her at Church, and that it was only with diffi-
culty she had been able to keep the rendezvous to-day.

I tried to thank her for coming, but she interrupted
with ;

200

GOLDEN HORN

“ I can find you a place to hide, but you will have to
pay heavily for it. Have you money ? If not, I think I
can get your cheques cashed.”

“ Thank you a thousand ”

“ And how do you propose to get out of Psamattia ? ”

“ Probably by climbing out of a window. You can trust
us to do that part.”

“ How will you find your way through Stambul ? ”

“ We have just obtained a map.”

“ Good, ril give you the name of the man who will
hide you, and will meet you there when you have escaped.
We can’t talk here.”

She opened her bag, took out a pellet of paper, flicked
it across to me without a moment’s hesitation.

“ Learn the way carefully,” she said, “ the hiding place
is about three miles from Psamattia. If you are asked for a
passport, say you are Germans.”

“ And the address ? ”

“ HaidS, effendim ! ” The sentry had seen me talking.

“ You have it.”

My heart was brimming over with things unsaid.

“ I simply can’t ” I began.

“ Don’t ! ” she said, to the novel on her knees.

And so I left her, with no salute to mark the great
occasion.

Neither of us had seen the other’s face.

On rejoining Peter, I found him a very sick man. It
was cruel to keep him out of bed, yet there still remained
much to do.

The White Lady had WTritten :

Themistocli, Mcuritza Restaurant, Sirkedji.

“ Where is the Marit2a Restaurant ? ” I asked our Dog
Collar Man.

CONSTANTINOPLE

201

“ Just Up the street.”

“ I want to go there. Before the war, when I was
staying at the British Embassy ” (I hardly distinguished
fact from fiction these days) we used to take coffee there
after shopping in the Great Bazaar.”

“ Not the Maritza, effendi.”

“ I think it was the Maritza. Let’s go there and see.
We needn’t be back for another hour. You know we don’t
want to escape this afternoon at any rate : it would be
ridiculous to think of it.”

“ The Commandant will ask me why we have been
so long.”

“ And you will tell him that the dentist kept us waiting.
Come, I pronuse you on my word of honour that I won’t
escape to-day.”

“ Your friend is very ill ! ”

The Dog Collar Man thought me heartless to leave
Peter shivering and sweating in his charge while I
amused myself, and was not in an amenable mood.

Peter, in spite of his condition, protested that he
wanted to drink iced lager beer at the Maritza, but it
was no use : he was on the verge of collapse : the Dog
Collar Man hailed a cab and hoisted him into it.

The Maritza would have to wait. I consoled myself
with the thought that we both had plenty of teeth which
we might offer up if necessary on the altar of freedom.

I

CHAPTER IX

JOSEPHINE

Peter recovered from influenza with great speed, and
in a few days we were allowed to go down to the seashore
to bathe. A little later, another visit to the dentist was
arranged without difficulty, and of course we took our
luncheon at the Maritza.

It was a shabby little restaurant, we found, with
few patrons and many flies. I asked the diminutive,
stooping, bespectacled waiter how he could serve an
omelette.

“ In the English way,” he answered smartly.

“ Good. Is your name Themistocle ? ”

“ Yes.”

“ You know a friend of mine,” I said, with my eyes still
on the menu.

“ What do you want ? ” he asked, bustling about with
plates and cutlery.

“ A place to hide. An omelette au beurre, bread, butter,
cafr-au-lait, anything you like. I’m ready to pay well
for what you can give us.”

“ Did she send you ? ”

“ Yes.”

Themistocl^’s eyes gleamed behind his thick glasses. He
went away to give his orders.

After a minute I said I was going to the lavatory. A
sentry made a half-hearted attempt to follow me, but
remained at the back-door of the restaurant. I foimd
Themistocld in a passage near the kitchen.

JOSEPHINE 203

“ You mustn’t be seen talking to me here,” he said,
terrified.

“ Show me where I can wash my hands.”

As we went, he asked me how much I could pay for
the lodgings I required ?

“ Fifty pounds on entering, and twenty poimds a week,
for the two of us.”

“ I couldn’t keep you for a week.”

“ Five days, then.”

“ I’ll see what I can do.” With that he bolted back to
the kitchen.

When our food arrived, I was so excited that my
stomach revolted at the sight.

“ Where do you live?” I asked Themistocl^ displaying
the omelette to him as if there was something the matter
with it.

He examined it carefully.

“ Close to this place. I’ll write down the address,” he
said, “ and give it to you, under the next plate I bring.”

“ No, I must see the house for myself : there’s ten
pounds for you if you can manage to show it me to-day.
Make another omelette and think of a way.”

The Dog Collar Man was entirely unsuspicious. He
did not imderstand French, and thought that I was
complaining about the food.

Then a very simple plan for seeing Themistocle’s house
suggested itself to me. I had run out of my favourite
cigarettes (which were only procurable in certain shops)
and told the Dog Collar Man that I wanted to go out to
buy a box while waiting for luncheon.

“ Explain to this gendeman,” I said to Themistocl^,
“ that you are going to show me where to get Bafra-
Madtee cigarettes and that he needn’t come, as we shall

204 GOLDEN HORN

only be away for half a minute. Of course I promise not

to escape.”

I thought, Even if the sentry comes, Themistocld can
still show me his house. But the sentry didn’t move, and
the Dog Collar Man was anchored to his beer : he mut-
tered “Good!”

As proof of the innocence of my intentions I left the
cafe without taking my hat. Immediately we were out
of sight, however, we ran up the Rue de la Sublime
Porte, bolted up a side street, stood before a black door-
way for a moment while I took my bearings ; then we ran
back and bought the box of Bafras. Within a couple of
minutes we were back in the Maritza trying not to look
either breathless or triumphant : Themistocl^ was ten
pounds richer, and I was possessed of knowledge more
precious to me than all the jewels in the Seraglio.

Before returning to Psamattia I scribbled a line in
the lavatory to the White Lady to say that if all went well
we should escape on the night of the full moon, July the
27th ; and gave it to Themistocl^ amongst the banknotes
with which I paid the bill.

* * 41

Nothing now remsuned but to contrive a means of
getting out of the dismantled Armenian Patriarchate
where we were lodged.

At first we thought that this would be an easy matter,
but although it was never difficult by the standards of
other escapers in European camps, who had to contend
with barbed wire and blood-hounds, we found that our
guards were more numerous and more alert than we had
thought. Sentries were stationed in every street to which
direct access was possible. The window of our room.

JOSEPHINE 205

which was over the doorway where the main guard lived,
looked out on to an East-West thoroughfare, across which
there was another house, inhabited by Russian prisoners
of war. We had considered the possibility of pretending

t o o

<0 1 •

THE ARMENIAN PATRIARCHATE AT PSAMATTIA

to go to the Russian house, and melting away unnoticed
amongst the passers-by in the street, but we found that
we had to obtain permission to visit the Russians, and
that we were always counted in and out of their house.
To escape from the back window of the Russian house
also proved impossible, because a sentry commanded
that exit.

GOLDEN HORN

206

Every point was watched. Two sentries armed with old
Martini rifles (of archaic pattern but unpleasantly big
bore) stood directly below our window : two more,
similarly equipped, were stationed opposite : another
half-dozen were posted in the garden and streets near-by.

Eventually we decided on a plan whose chief merit
was its apparent impossibility : we would climb out of
the window and across three or four yards of wall face,
then having reached the cover of a parapet on the roof
of the adjoining house, we would creep along behind it
to the comer of the East-West thoroughfare, about a
hundred yards away, where a North-South street inter-
sected it, and slide down a rope to freedom.

It was a good plan, because the wall was not as im-
passable as it looked, having two string-courses which
would give us a foothold and a handhold ; and our
visibility was not as great as it seemed, for sentries rarely
look upwards, and rarely look for things they don’t
expect.

“ Zero hour ” was 9.45 p.m.

In order to facilitate the chances of getting out of our
window without being seen, we had enlisted the help of
a Russian Colonel, Prince Avaloff. When we extinguished
the lights in our room, as if going to bed, he had promised
to engage the sentries at the door of his house in con-
versation, and to give us an all-clear signal by waving
a lighted cigarette three times.

We drank a stirrup-cup together before he left us.

We took off our boots, tied them round our waists,
roped ourselves together, shouldered our haversacks,
blew out otH lamp.

Crouched under the window-sill, we waited. The
sentries below us were sitting on stools, with their rifles

JOSEPHINE 207

slung, as casual and unconcerned as we could wish ; the
two opposite lolled against their door posts ; and the full
moon had risen punctually and brightly behind our
house, leaving the street in shadow, but lighting up the
faces of the sentries so that even their eyelashes were
visible. Little Avaloff approached them : only the top
of his cap reached the moonlight : the sentries helped
themselves to his cigarettes.

Waiting was anxious work : I lived through an age
while a minute passed. At times such as these, the con-
fidence of one’s companion counts for such, and I shall
never forget Peter’s bearing. . . .

Avaloff waved his cigarette three times.

On seeing the signal that meant so much, I was so
excited that I might not have moved but for Peter. He
went first out of the window and I followed an instant
later.

Once the first step was taken, once my feet and hands
rested on the foothold and handhold that led to freedom,
my lethargy vanished, leaving nothing but the thrill of
climbing. At one moment we were in full view of four
sentries, an officer who had come to take the air at our
doorway, and a stroller in the street. But no one looked
up : no one saw the two men who clambered slowly
along the wall just above their heads.

After gaining the roof of the next house, we lay flat
and breathless behind the parapet ; then we unroped
ourselves.

The parapet was lower than we thought, zind in order
to obtain the advantage of its cover it was necessary to
remain prone in the gutter of the roof. In this position,
from ten o’clock until half-past eleven, we wriggled on
very cautiously past a dead cat and other offensive

GOLDEN HORN

208

objects, until at last we reached the place where we had
thought to slip down our rope.

Only once had we been startled. I had raised myself to
look round, when one of the sentries ran out into the
middle of the street and began to shout. What had
alarmed him I do not know : we remained immobile for
five minutes, then continued our creeping progression,
wondering whether perhaps the Turks were already
searching for us in our house.

The sooner we were away the better, but our street
corner was not as safe as it had seemed when we had made
our plans. Directly facing our part of the roof, and less
than ten yards away, an officer of the Psamattia Fire
Brigade sat at an open window, looking anxiously up and
down the street, as if expecting someone to keep an
appointment. His window was on a level with us, and he
stared in our direction with such intentness that I thought
he had seen us. But we lay still behind the parapet, and it
soon became apparent that we were not the objects of his
languishing regard.

Meanwhile the moon — ^the cold, wise moon — was
creeping up the sky and would soon illuminate us so
brilliantly that even a love-lorn fireman could not fail to
notice us. For an hour — or so it seemed — this annoying
Romeo kept watch. At last, just as we had determined
to let go the painter and take our chance, he began to
yawn and stretch and look towards his bed, which we
could see at the farther end of his room.

“ You are tired of waiting — she isn^t worth it ! ” I sent
in thought-wave across the street. He hesitated, yawned
again, and just as our protecting belt of shadow had
narrowed to a yard, he gave up his hopes of Juliet and
retired-

JOSEPHINE 209

That was our moment.

We rose to our knees, made the rope fast to a con-
venient ring in the parapet, paid it out until it lay in
the street below. Traffic had ceased. The sentries were
huddled in their coats, for the night had grown chilly.
Somewhere a dog yapped.

I like to linger over what followed : there have been
hundreds of better escapes, but nothing can take these
moments from me : they are packed, pressed down and
brimming over with pleasure, and when things go wrong
to-day I am still comforted by the memory of how very
right they went on that occasion.

We vaulted the parapet, slipped down the rope. In
my descent I half kicked down the sign-board of a shop,
and Peter, who followed, completed the disaster. We had
made noise enough to wake the dead ; and in our haste
we had ripped open our hands. But we were free, and
no one had stirred.

After two and a half years of captivity we were free.
A long misery was behind us, a great hope in front.
Facts are blessed things : life-buoys to which neurotics
may cling in the seas of doubt which encompass them : my
hopes and plans for the past two years had found physical
expression. The slothful years vanished in the twinkling
of an eye. We had outwitted the Turks and the world
was before us.

After lighting cigarettes, we strolled away in our
stockinged feet, ready to run for our lives if need arose.

Once well clear of the garrison, we stopped, put on our
boots, consulted the map. We were at the ruins of the
ancient church of St. John the Baptist, amongst trees
which overshadowed the ghostly turbaned tombs of
Islamic dead and the older graves of the Sleepless Monks.

Oh

210

GOLDEN HORN

Evidently we had come rather out of our way : after
making sure of our position, we set our course for
Sirkedji. Remembering the White Lady’s instructions,
we sang :

Lieb Vaterland, magst ruhig sein,

Fest steht und treu die Wacht am Rhein.

Only once did we think that we might be recaptured.

As we were passing the Fatih Mosque at about one in
the morning, we heard a ratde on the cobbles behind us.
A carriage was being galloped in our direction : it might
well contain some of the Psamattia garrison. We took
refuge in the ruins which abound in this part of the
city, and lay there, while the clatter grew louder and
louder.

Wisps of cloud crossed the moon, now at her zenith :
their shadows moved like ghosts across the desolation of
the city. A cat was abroad : she saw us, and halted with
paw uplifted, and blazing eyes.

Then the carriage passed, empty, with a drunken
driver. After it had rattled away into the night, we
emerged, and continued our way through dim alleys and
balconied streets, shutting out the moonlight.

Dawn was near : the voice of a muezzin rang through
the still air, bringing to me a sense of that brotherhood
which has always been a message of the great teachers.
But all about us lay misery, racial hatred, fear. The hopes
of igo8 had not been fulfilled. Famine and fire and
disease were waiting to take what they could from house-
holds already ravaged by war. Unseen behind latticed
vnndows, and deep in the minds of dreamers and the sleep-
less, what a weight of woe there was !

2II

JOSEPHINE

Now the muezzin’s call died down. The night was over.
We stood before the door of Themistocl^’s house.

We knocked softly, and waited, flattened in the shadow,
prepared for either welcome or betrayal.

We waited and waited. I thought. They’re asleep :
we shall have to hide in the ruins until to-morrow
evening.

Then the door opened about an inch and two litde faces
appeared, low down : behind them someone held a
Hght.

At last the door was flung wide, and we saw on the
stairs a whole family of friendly people, male and female,
old and young, all in night dress, and all with arms out-
stretched in greeting. We might have been prodigal sons
returning, instead of two strangers whose presence would
be a source of continual danger.

After a business talk with Themistocld, during which
fifty pounds changed hands, Hyppolite and Athene, his
twin children, aged eight, took us each by the hand and
led us upstairs.

“ The last escaped prisoner we had here was a forger,”
said Hyppolite.

“ He was a friend of father’s,” added Athene, “ and
escaped to Russia about six weeks ago. He was afraid that
the police would find his tools, so he threw them into our
cistern : they are there now.”

We reached the top floor, and were shown into an apart-
ment containing a double bed with a stuffy canopy of
damask.

“ This is our bedroom,” they said.

“ And where are we to sleep ? ” I asked.

“ Here,” said Themistocl6, who had followed close

212

GOLDEN HORN

behind. “ My sister and I and the twins were using
the bed until your arrival, but now we will sleep in the
passage.”

“ The passage ? Were you all four in this bed ? ”

“ Yes. The other rooms are full of lodgers. We are poor
people, and must make what we can. There are three
officers of the Turkish Army here at present. But they
won’t disturb you, because they are hiding, too.”

“ Mon Dim ! You don’t mean to say that your sister
is going to live in the passage ? ”

“ Certainly. It’s safer there, in case the police come.”

“ I know all the police,” said Athene ; “ even when
they are not in uniform, I can recognise them by their
boots.”

“ We are always on the look-out for them,” added
Hyppolite. “ If they come to search the house you will
have to get into the cistern.”

“ Where the forger threw his tools,” Athene explained.

Coffee and cigarettes were produced, and ointment for
our lacerated hands. The family wanted to hear every
detail of our escape, and we were nothing loth to have
an audience. They clapped their hands with delight at
the idea of the Turks’ amazement when they discovered
that we had vanished, leaving no trace behind us.

“They will never find the rope,” said Themistocl6,
“ because the shopkeeper will cut it down and hide it,
for fear of being asked questions.”

After some further discussion of the habits of tlic Turks,
the price of food, and the various ways of escaping from
Constantinople, Themistocl^’s grandmother announced
thatwe must thank the Holy Saints for having kept ussafe.

She went to a glass cupboard in the comer of the room,
opened it, lit two candles. A scent of rose-leaves and

JOSEPHINE 213

incense came from the shrine, which contained oranges,
ikons, a large family Bible, and eggs from bygone Easters.
We stood silent.

I was expecting a prayer, but the old lady blew out the
candles, shut the cupboard, made the sign of the Cross
over it and crossed herself. The thanksgiving had been a
silent one, and the family now dispersed, after bidding us
a very good morning. I think Themistocle wanted to kiss
us, but we had been through trials enough.

Peter and I threw ourselves on to the bed, too ex-
hausted to undress.

Next instant, as it seemed to me, although in reality
two hours had passed, we were awakened by the
twins.

“ Time to get up,” they said excitedly. “ The house
might be searched at any minute.”

Instantly we were afoot,

“ Where are the police ? ”

“ There is a detective standing at the corner of our
street,” said Hyppolite.

“ They often come to see if all our lodgers are regis-
tered,” added Athene.

We staggered gloomily ddwnstairs, full of fear and
sleep. But in the pantry we found the seniors of the house-
hold unconcerned about the police. There was often a
detective at that comer, they assured us, and while there
was no imminent danger of a search, there was an imme-
diate prospect of breakfast. A saucepan was actually being
buttered (and butter was then almost worth its weight in
gold) to make us an omelette. So we began to eat, and as
we ate we remembered how hungry we were : after two
omelettes had ftillen to my fork, an engaging sense of
drowsiness began to creep over me again. But the twins

GOLDEN HORN

214

would not let us rest : they looked on us as in their charge,
and bullied us accordingly.

“ You must practise getting into the cistern,” said
Hyppolite.

“ Like the forger did ! ”

The worst of it was that their suggestion was sound.
Common sense and our duty to our hosts dictated that
we should neglect no precautions.

I took off my clothes, and removing the lid of the cistern,
was lowered into the waters below. As my eyes grew ac-
customed to the light I saw a forest of slender columns
supporting the houses above me : I waded on a little
further, but soon returned, for I was afraid that I might
lose myself : the cistern seemed endless, and it was indeed
a part of the great underground system of aqueducts by
which Valens and Justinian had supplied water to Byzan-
tium. It was here that many Janissaries were drowned
in 1826 when Mahmoud the Reformer upraised the green
standard of the Prophet and decreed their death.

The place was haunted : something scurried on an un-
seen ledge : a rat perhaps : then my fingers touched a little
thing that cracked under them, and I felt a stinging pain :
whether it was a beetle or a sleepy wasp I did not stop to
enquire. As I groped my way back to the manhole, I
barked my foot against something hard ; stooping down,
I picked up a block of pumice-stone. It was the forger’s
die, no doubt

All morning we passed in the pantry, eating and dozing
by snatches, and writing a letter to the White Lady. Morn-
ing merged into afternoon, and the afternoon into eve-
ning. No detectives came. We were safe.

At nightfall, after sending Hyppolite scouting up the

JOSEPHINE 215

stairs to see that the other lodgers were not about, we
went to our room, unpacked our gear, opened our map,
considered our next move.

We were in no particular hurry to leave the house. The
longer we stayed, the more likely it was that the Turks
would relax the measures they had taken for our recap-
ture ; besides, we wanted a day or two of leisure to weigh
the advantages of the various routes that led out of the
city.

But we had reckoned without the bugs. They bred by
the billion in Themistocl^’s bedroom, and such was their
voracity that except for the first sleep of two hours, when
exhaustion had made us insensible, we never had more
than half an hour of uninterrupted rest. Peter and I lay
in the stately double bed wondering how any man or
woman alive could tolerate the creatures that crawled
over its mahogany posts and swarmed over its flowered
damask. Every now and then one or other of us used to
light a candle and add to the holocaust of creatures we
had already made.

“ What hunting ? ” I asked.

“ A couple of brace this time, and a cub I chopped in
covert.”

“ That makes twenty-two couple up to date — and the
time is 12.35

A little later, Peter wotild enquire what sport I was
having.

“ A sounder broke away under your pillow,” I reported.
“ Six squeakers and a brace of heavyweights.”

Having killed every creeping thing in sight, I lay back
and gasped : but then, out of the corner of my eye, hugely
magnified by proximity, I saw another monstrous brute,
avid and eager and brisk. I squashed it : there was a smear

GOLDEN HORN

216

of blood on the pillow (my own good blood) : I was
streaked with crimson, itched at neck and wrist, felt irrit-
able, unclean, hysterical : I switched on the electric light
and saw another, and another, and another troop of
vermin : I swore that I would stay no longer than was
absolutely necessary in this room that stank with their
slaughter.

During the daytime Themistocl^ avoided being bitten
in a simple way : the ends of his drawers were provided
with tapes tied close above the ankles : excited throngs
of insects used to explore his elastic-sided boots, but were
baulked of a closer contact. This was all very well when
clothed, but what did he do at night ? Perhaps he never
undressed.

Themistocle was a queer creature, and I did not entirely
trust him. When he visited us next morning before going
to his work in the restaurant, he talked about the risks he
ran in keeping us, and the cost of living in Constantinople.

“ Everyone is starving,” he said, “ even the policemen
go hungry for bribes. A friend of mine, a policeman, said
to me the other day, ‘ For the love of Allah find some-
thing for me to do. Among your acquaintances you can
surely find a sinner ? Then I could arrest him and we
would share the proceeds.’ ”

” WTiat did you say to that ? ” I asked.

“ I said that I would do my best.”

“ But what sort of man would you find ? ”

“ Any sort. A drunkard, perhaps, if I saw one, or a
rich man, if I dared.”

“ Rich men are apt to be dangerous ! ”

“ I know. But what can one do ? One must live ! ”

** And let live,” I answered.

“ I have children to feed,” said ThemistocW,

217

JOSEPHINE

“ No doubt our payment has been useful.”

“ Yes, but what would happen to them if you were
caught in my house ? ”

“ Don’t let’s think of that,” I said : “ We’ll be off to-
morrow. Besides, the war will be over soon. The German
offensive has failed : now the Allies are beginning to
attack. When the American armies move ”

“ The Allies said that about the Russians.”

“ This is different. We have three times the manpower
of Germany in reserve, and ten times the material re-
sources. We can’t help winning. The war will be over by
the autumn of 1919 : I know it for a fact.”

“ The war won’t interest me then, for we shall have
starved,” said Themistocle gloomily.

I did not like his harping on hunger, for I suspected
that a price had been put on our heads, and that he was
weighing the advantages and disadvantages of keeping us.
I do not know whether we did him an injustice or not in
doubting his integrity, but at any rate we determined to
see the last of him as soon as possible.

Peter made up his mind to board a melon-boat to
Rodosto and thence work his way either along the coast,
where he hoped to be picked up by our patrol boats, or to
the Bulgarian frontier. As for me, I decided, in consulta-
tion with the White Lady, to remain in Constantinople in
another (and I hoped less verminous) hiding place until
I could arrange to be smuggled out of the country by
friendly pirates.

Peter’s disguise was a matter of difficulty, for he was so
tall that he attracted notice in an Eastern crowd. How-
ever, with his face darkened with burnt cork, his hair
dyed black, and a tattered fez on the back of his head he
looked the part of a ragamuffin Arab so well that he

GOLDEN HORN

2i8

might have been arrested merely on account of his ap-
pearance. But a touch of genius completed his make-up.
In his hands he carried a bowl of curds and half a cu-
cumber, making him seem to be a householder going
about his domestic affairs instead of a vagrant escaping.

He left in a great hurry, for his boat had to catch the
tide. After he had gone, depression overcame me : my
scheme involved waiting for people and politics outside
my control : I wished I had tried my luck in a more
active way. But alas, there is something in my nature which
leads me into positions where physical energy is required,
and then compels me to consider them philosophically
instead of acting on them.

But that evening, the White Lady arrived in Themis-
tocl^’s house and cheered me with the news that Prince
Avaloff would certainly be repatriated to his native town
of Tiflis under the Treaty of Brest Litovsk, and that he
was not only ready, but anxious to take me with him to
Russia, disguised as his servant. His intention on arrival
in the Caucasus was to raise two regiments of cavalry and
give me command of one of them, that we might ride
down together to join hands with the British above
Baghdad. I rather fancied myself leading a regiment of
Circassian swordsmen !

We discussed how best I could meet Avaloff. He could
not come to Themistocl^’s house, for although he was
nominally at liberty, he was always shadowed by a de-
tective who enquired closely into the character of any
male companions with whom he consorted. And it was
then that the White Lady had one of those inspirations
which alter the lives of men.

“ A friend of mine left me some clothes at the beginning
of the war,” she said, “ which would fit you with the

JOSEPHINE 219

help of a tailor. Why not become a German governess ?
Then no one will mind your talking to the Colonel.”

It was a superb idea. No woman was asked for her
pa.ssport in Constantinople, especially no European. As
such as I should be able to tsike tea with Avaloff in any
restaurant of Pera — the more public the better — and
learn exactly how he proposed to pass me off as his ser-
vant. I might, of course, have relied on written communi-
cations from Avaloff, but knowing his vague, romantic
nature I distrusted any scheme that did not bring us face
to face.

Next morning, accordingly, Themistocld brought me a
suitcase which the White Lady had sent to him at the
Maritza : it contained the requisite articles for my trans-
formation, and I unpacked it with awe.

Between us we managed to find the front of the slip
and the correct use of the various elastics hanging from the
corset : two small towels gave me a pleasing bust : once
these were in place, the blouse fitted well. The coat,
although it was short in the arm and tight in the back,
could be expanded by a tailor. A thing like an em-
broidered nightshirt I rejected altogether : I afterwards
learned that it was a camisole, and not essential.

I dined in my new character, to accustom myself to
wearing a skirt, and to learn not to cross my legs, a thing
not done by young ladies in the Constantinople of 1918.
With a hand-mirror and long glass I surveyed myself
front, back and profile ; and was impressed by my ap-
pearance. But when my good angel arrived, she gave a
cry of horror.

“ You haven’t even shaved and I wanted to take you
out with me to-night ! ”

“ I won’t be long. But what about my head and feet ? ”

220

GOLDEN HORN

“ I’ve brought you a hat and wig,” she said. “ Your
own shoes will do — those glac^ kid ones you were sent
from the Embassy. We’ll sew bows on them to-morrow.”

In five minutes my face was as smooth as that of the
waiter who served the lovers of Orelay. On this founda-
tion the White Lady set to work with vanishing cream,
poudre Rachel, Vesuvian black for the eyebrows, bistre
for the lashes, and a touch of rouge high on the cheek-
bones.

“ Will anyone mistake me for a governess ? ” I asked.

“ I might mistake you for Mademoiselle Josephine if
you would only take shorter steps,” answered the
White Lady.

We tried on the wig, which came down well over my
forehead, and arranged its brown ringlets to hide a sus-
picion of blue streak persisting through my powdered
cheeks. Then we laid on the wig a large striped hat at a
becoming angle, and a veil over that ; finally the White
Lady threw a dustcoat over my shoulders to hide the
ill-fitting garments beneath it.

So arrayed, I stood again before my mirrored self ;
with incredulity at first, then amazement. Was this really
me? Tiresias himself could not have experienced greater
magic : Mademoiselle Josephine lived and moved and
smiled into my eyes.

What a girl ! She was sardonic, but not unattractive.
There was a cruel look about her mouth. Her eyes were
hard : she had seen life — too much of it, I thought.

“ I don’t look very respectable, do I ? ” I suggested.

“ How vain you are ! ” said the White Lady. “ You
look a little unsexed and unapproachable — one of these
very modem girls— but that’s all to the good. To-morrow
I’ll show you how to make yourself look better. You’ll

221

JOSEPHINE

pass in a crowd on a dark night like this. Come on, the
tailor is expecting you in Pera and I’ve arranged for
you to live with him.”

We called for Themistocle, and settled his bill, binding
him with many vows to secrecy. He was glad to see me go,
I think, and I don’t blame him : fear and avarice had been
contending for many hours in his mind : now he would
have peace. Little did either of us imagine the tragedy
soon to be enacted in his house.

“ I’ve forgotten your nose,” said my companion at the
door.

“My ?”

“ Powder — here, take mine.”

She gave me her bag. While we waited for a cab, I
fumbled with it stupidly, thinking that everyone in the
street must stop and look at what I was doing.

My hands felt beefy, enormous, gaunt-wristed and my
forearms like those of a baboon in their short, tight beige
sleeves, A policeman was walking towards us. Would he
stop, ask who I was, insist on my following him to the
police station ? No, he had passed with no more than a
respectful glance. The cab drew up. We took our seats :
the driver whipped up his horse : we trotted away towards
Galata Bridge, I wanted to shout for joy.

“ What do I do with this ? ” I asked, returning the bag
to the White Lady.

“ You carry it shut,” she said, “ so that things don’t
drop out of it.”

We drove up the long winding way from Galata, dis-
missed the cab just before we came to the Tokadian
Hotel, and continued on foot. At the Tokatlian, high
officials and their ladies were supping at the plate-glass
window which faced the street, : we lingered for a moment

222 GOLDEN HORN

amongst the throng that was regarding the scene of
luxury within. Two women were dining by themselves
at a table adorned with rose-petals ; between them stood
a long-necked bottle in an ice-bucket. One was elderly,
blonde, heavily bejewelled, vacant-eyed, with the then
not common rigidity of a lifted face : the other was a
boyish-bobbed brunette with wavy hair brushed back
from a thoughtful forehead, and tender eyes belying
the bone above them, and curved, delicate nostrils con-
tradicting full, eager, painted lips, and soft, white arms
with strong, square hands : a creature of contrasts.
She turned a cigarette holder in my direction, and drew
on it fiercely, staring at me. That long, close look gave
me confidence : it was frank and friendly, yet did not
touch my secret. I was thrilled.

After I had followed the White Lady through some
small, confusing streets, we came to a place where she
stopped and looked back to see if we were being
followed.

“ Walk straight on for five minutes,” she said, “ and
then back at the same pace. I’ll meet you here again, and
show you the house.”

I did as I was told, wondering what would happen if I
were accosted. But no one passed me, except a night-
watchman thumping with his staff, and a litde boy who
took off his cap and begged in a reassuring manner.
Pera went to bed early, for light was expensive.

Young cypresses and old houses surrounded me :
sloping seawards was a forest of leaning, derelict tomb-
stones : beyond them, the Golden Horn glittered in the
moonlight : it glittered between proud cities and rival
cultures : on the one hand the domes of Stambul floated
luminous and ethereal, on the other rose the Tower of

JOSEPHINE 223

Christ, stem and straight and resplendent. Between them,
ships cast black shadows on the burnished water.

There was a contest between the Asiatic wisdom of
leaving things alone in order to cultivate the inner life of
contemplation and the turmoil of the soul of Europe,
magnificent even when most terrible ; a contrast between
the peace of the kief and the commerce of the West. And
the war went on for caged and free, while some starved
and others made fortunes, some became Generals and
others corpses.

But as usual I had stopped to think at the wrong
moment ; and when I returned the Wloite Lady was wzdt-
ing for me anxiously, thinking that I had missed my way.
She had reconnoitred the house of the Greek, and had
satisfied herself that there were no untoward watchers
there.

Swiftly she turned left-handed, then left: again, and led
me through a passage roofed with vines to a low door, at
which she knocked. A rheumy old Greek with a white
beard answered her : we entered in silence : the door
closed : still in silence I was led upstairs to a beautifully
clean little bedroom, papered in a light bright colour,
firom which a veranda opened.

This was to be my home for as long as I wished. . . .

* « * *

I thought, I have found Heaven! I hope the White Lady
guessed my gratitude, for my heart was too full for words.
After bidding her good-night, I lay down and slept for
ten hours without stirring.

In the background of my new quarters I discovered that
severaJ women lived and moved, but they avoided me
(thinking it unwise, I suppose, to enquire too closely into

GOLDEN HORN

S 24

my identity) and left me entirely to the care of the old
Greek and his son : they were the only members of the
household to whom I was known. Old George used to
bring me my caft au lait in the mornings and sit with me
sometimes. Young George, who was a chemist’s assistant,
used to sit with me in the evenings on the veranda,
drinking ’araq, and telling me the gossip of the Grand’
Rue de Pera : the insolence of the Germans, and the
gaffes of the Young Turks.

“ It is forbidden to circulate in the city in a state of un-
deanliness, or in a state that inspires repulsion,” ran one
of the edicts of the Prefect of Police. And he had said to
a friend of Young George : “ Je m’en fiche des enfants
des pauvres — qu’ils cr^vent ! ”

“ Can you wonder that we want the Allies to win ?
Imagine having to live under barbarians like Bedri Bey ! ”

We drank damnation to him.

Things were on a hair edge in Constantinople : a burst
tyre made men duck for cover, thinking that the revolu-
tion had come, while news of Enver’s downfall or the
Sultan’s murder were often circulated. Bibulous old
Mehmed had recently died and George had been present
at Vahid-ed-din Effendi’s Girding-on of the Sword at
Eyoub : he told me that both Enver and Taalat Pashas
had looked extremely nervous during the ceremony. One
of the first acts of Mehmed VI (as Vehid-ed-din now
styled himself) had been to take Enver Pasha down a peg
from his position as Vice-Generalissimo of the Turkish
Army ; and his next move had been to send for the only
English tailor living in Constantinople, and order several
suits from him. The Germans he shunned.

At any moment the war might end, and I wanted
desperately to do something useful before that happened,

JOSEPHINE 225

but the Avaloff adventure was beginning to seem to me
too fantastic to succeed. The first time that I kept a
rendezvous with him, he failed to appear.

On this occasion the White Lady had an important en-
gagement in Prinkipo (she was helping General Towns-
hend in the negotiadons which led to the Turkish armis-
tice) and Young George accompanied me.

Josephine’s appearance by daylight caused me acute
concern : even with gloves and veil I was afraid that I
would attract undue attention. But I soon found that my
walk and manner adjusted themselves almost auto-
matically to skirts, and that the citizens of Pera were too
busy with their own affairs to give more than a glance at
a tall, painted girl in the company of a smart young
Greek.

We sat at the Petits Champs, drinking lemonade. No-
one paid any attention to us. I rolled up my veil over the
brim of my hat and looked about me with all the assur-
ance of a professional beauty. Avaloff did not appear.
After waiting more than an hour we returned sadly
homewards.

I knew now that my disguise was perfect for the purpose
intended ; but if Avaloff failed me it was useless. I could
talk to no one, for my voice would have at once betrayed
me, and I could not explore the city alone without
exciting comment.

On our way back, we happened upon a scene which
lifted a corner of the curtain of intrigue shrouding the new
tenant of Yildiz Kiosk. A Turkish officer in staff uniform
came running down the Grand’ Rue de Pera, followed by
half a dozen Dog Collar Men : the fugitive took refuge in
a leading club, and slammed the door in the faces of the
policemen. A crowd collected, in which we mingled.

Ph

226

GOLDEN HORN

Now a MercMes car arrived, carrying half a dozen
soldiers. They unpacked a machine-gun and took up a
position on the pavement. Meanwhile the police had
broken into the club. But as they entered, their prey ap-
peared at a top-storey window. He looked behind him,
waved his arms to Heaven and threw himself down into
the street.

I had not imagined that a man could blot himself out
so noiselessly on cobblestones. The crowd hadn’t time to
gasp.

A moment before there had been an exciting chase :
now a crumpled thing lay there, in gold epaulettes. The
machine-gunners packed up and the spectators melted
away.

“ That makes one Turk the less,” said George unfeel-
ingly. “ He was one of the Sultan’s aides-de-camp who
had quarrelled with Enver’s gang, and they were deter-
nained to get him. It will be Enver’s turn soon. You see ! ”

It was not until I had passed a week of my equivocal
existence as Mademoiselle Josephine, taking brief strolls
at night amongst the graveyards, but avoiding the habi-
tations of man, that the White Lady was able to arrange
a meeting with Avaloff in the Petits Champs. We found
him in high spirits, drinking beer with his detective and
ogling the Periote world of fashion.

He rose and saluted us as we entered : the detective
politely took his glass away to a near-by table : the White
Lady introduced me : Avaloff kissed my glove without
batting an eyelid : we sat down together and ordered tea.

“Now you two can go ahead,” said the White Lady, “ I
must be back soon, to look after my great-aunts, but you
will be safe here with the Colonel for half an hour.”

JOSEPHINE 227

“ I am honoured that you should trust Mademoiselle to
my keeping,” said AvalofF.

“ I can take care of myself,” I ssiid with a simper.

“ Now to business. Everything is arranged. In a fort-
night’s time we’ll be having tea in Tiflis ! ”

“ Not so loud, mon Colonel ! ”

“ Ah, that sacre spy. Never mind him, he doesn’t un-
derstand French. Now listen, Josephine : I have bought
a soldier’s uniform for you from a Russian who has con-
sented to stay behind in order to let you come. You have
only to put it on and follow me on board.”

“ When are you likely to start ? ”

“ Any day. Any moment Peace is signed. I wanted to
tell you this a week ago, but I had ’flu. As soon as I hear
the exact date of sailing, I will go to the Maritza and tell
Themistocl6, who will tell you. Then you will come
to Themistocl^’s house, where your clothes will be ready
for you. You will change into them there and join me
on Galata quay.”

“ What shall I say if someone asks me who I am ? ”

“ You will explain that you are my Georgian servant —
like this — ” and the Colonel gabbled a tongue-twisting
sentence which I tried to memorise.

“ I’ll write it down,” he said.

“ Don’t ! ” said the White Lady “ You are being
watched.”

“ Very well. I’ll repeat it.”

“ Yes, softly. The detective heard you talking in another
language.”

Our tea arrived. AvalofF instructed me in my behaviour
as his orderly. We made arrangements for cashing a
cheque for fifty pounds as solatium for the Russian whose
place I was taking.

228 GOLDEN HORN

“ It’s all quite simple,” said Avaloflf, whose mind kept
escaping from the present. “ As soon as we get to Tiflis
we’ll enlist two thousand men — more if we have time —
and kill the bloody Bolsheviki ! Then we’ll ride down
through the mountains to join your Mosul Army.”

“ You can settle that on the boat,” said the White
Lady suddenly. “ I don’t like the look of things.”

My heart leaped beneath its brassiere, for I saw that
the detective had called over a Dog Collar Man to his
table. What were they concerting together ?

“ m take you out of this,” said the White Lady.
“ Say good-bye to the Colonel affectionately.”

Paling under my rouge, I forced a smile to my lips and
gave Avaloff my hand.

“ Make love to me,” I muttered : “ go on ! ”

“ When shall I see you again, my sweet Josephine ? ”

“ On ne sait jamais ! ”

He bent over my hand, clasped it to his heart, would
not let it go, looking at me with his brown, ardent eyes. ■

The Dog Collar Man had risen, I suppose to reprimand
Avaloflf for flirting, but neither he nor the detective now
suspected us of any serious intrigue.

“ Ecoutes moi done, Josephine ; je t’adore.”

“ Au revoir, cher ami ! ”

Drawing myself up in a irh caU way, I looked at the
three men in turn : Avaloflf bowed : Dog Collar winced :
the detective blushed and began admiring the view over
the Bosphorus with great intentness.

But my knees were fairly knocking together as the
White Lady escorted me back. Near the ruins behind the
Pera Palace Hotel she left me to find my way alone, for
she was already late for her great-aunts.

Still trembling, I had reached the last turning but one

JOSEPHINE 229

for home when an elderly German officer in pince-nez
saluted me. I daresay he had mistaken me for some-
one else, and that his attentions were honourable, but as
soon as he accosted me I felt that I could no longer act my
part. Gathering up my skirts, I bolted, and did not stop
ru nning until I was safely in the house of the Greek.

CHAPTER X

AN EMERGENCY EXIT

Wit H my cafd au lait about a week later Old George
brought me a letter which Avaloff had consigned to
Themistocle for delivery. Already, at the sight of the writ-
ing, I felt a premonition of disaster. As I took the envelope,
I told myself that the news might after all be good : why
shouldn’t it be good news ? Why shouldn’t Avaloff be
writing to say that I was to meet him that very morning ?

Yet instinct was right : the message ran : “Just off.
No time to explain. Constantin Avaloff.”

All the Russian officers and soldiers in Constantinople
had been awakened at midnight and embarked before
dawn. They were now on their way up the Bosphorus :
and here was I an idle mummer, with three wasted weeks
behind me, and all to do again.

It was a bitter moment, though I was not as unfortunate
as I thought, for had I reached Tifiis my adventures
would not have been pleasant : I believe that poor Avaloff
was murdered there by the Bolsheviks.

I now committed Josephine to oblivion, and became a
Htmgarian mechanic who had lost his job at the munition
factory near San Stefano. I grew a small turned-up
moustache, bought steel spectacles, a stained white waist-
coat which I decorated with a nickel-gilt watch-chain, a
pair of old elastic-sided boots, and a bowler hat, which I
wore askew. My nails were oily and my antecedents doubt-
fiil, but I had a vicika (forged by a relative of ThemistocH’s
friend who had escaped to Russia) certifying that I was

AN EMERGENCY EXIT S3I

exempted from service in the Army owing to flat feet and
valvular disease of the heart. Armed with this document,
which was signed, stamped and sealed with the counterfeit
of the insignia of Military Commandant of Constantinople,
I believed that I could pass in the city without molesta-
tion.

I used to spend my mornings at the docks, hoping to
find someone to take me to Russia, and my evenings with
Young George, in a little hotel in Galata, where some
Christians were wont to assemble in a cellar, planning
revolution.

“ We’ll crucify the Turks and Germans,” said the
proprietor of the hotel, “ and eat them in little bits ! ”

A bell rang, and he hurried upstairs. On his return, he
explained that a German client had complained that his
beer was not iced. “ The sot won’t be able to get a cold
drink where I’m going to send him,” he said.

“ We are starving under the Young Turks,” said a
speaker. “ I paid half a lira for a small loaf yesterday, and
found a pebble and part of a mouse in it. Down with
Enver and his bloody gang ! Up the Allies ! ”

’Arag flowed freely, and sweet Greek brandy.

We unpacked a barrel full of rusty muskets and a case
of curved swords (they looked like theatrical properties
to me) and the proprietor showed us an enormous silk
flag, stitched by the fingers of Christian maidens in order
that it should fly over Aya Sophia on the day when the
Cross should replace the Crescent on its dome.

Enthusiasm is contagious : it W2is only when I emerged
from this atmosphere of melodrama into the silent streets
that I remembered the strong knees of the Turks.

But my time was not ill spent, for I found amongst
the conspirators several who backed their belief in the

232 GOLDEN HORN

Allied cause to the extent of cashing cheques for me
(written on half sheets of notepaper) amounting to two
hundred pounds sterling. Armed with this means of
persuasion I had no doubt that I would be able to
purchase a passage to Russia.

And now I heard at the docks that two British officers
who had recently escaped from Psamattia were hiding
with Themistocl^, and were anxious to charter a boat
to a Black Sea port : obviously if we joined forces we
should minimise both expense and danger.

On the morning after this information reached me I
walked over to Stambul to visit my previous abode, and
there I discovered that the two escapers were already in
touch with a Lazz pirate who had promised to provide
them with a motor-boat (for a handsome consideration, of
course) in which they would travel to Poti disguised as his
wives.

The dresses necessary to enable my friends to pass
the Customs authorities in the Bosphorus had already been
ordered. They were to wear cloaks and heavy veils and
were to sit in the Lazz’s cabin, refusing to move or speak if
questioned. Provided a suitable tip were forthcoming, the
Lazz had explained, there would be no trouble with the
gallant excisemen, for their custom was to absolve
wealthy Muhammedan ladies from scrutiny. The only
difficulty was the tipping. The Lazz wanted four hundred
pounds sterling for the two of them (this included the
expense of the boat) and my friends did not know how to
find the money, since the Lazz would not take a cheque.

I told them that I would return on the morrow with at
least part of the money in Turkish notes, provided they
would take me with them. They agreed, and I felt now
that matters were at last moving to the conclusion I had

AN EMERGENCY EXIT 233

SO long desired. The scheme had many elements of
success : it was simple, speedy, and fairly safe : at any
rate whatever risks we ran the Lazz would run them too.

When I returned with my money in banknotes, the Lazz
was there : a tall, thin man, with a solemn, trustworthy
manner. He made no difficulty about taking an extra wife
with him to Russia, but wanted six hundred pounds
sterling for the three of us. After some argument he agreed
to take our cheques for this amount, provided we gave
them to him before starting, and provided also we gave
him one hundred liras in cash to buy fuel and oil for the
trip. The cash was absolutely necessary, he said, for how
could the launch run without petrol ?

“ But you can run your launch without our help,” I
said. “ Why do you want more petrol for three passen-
gers ? ”

“ There is your food to buy.”

” We can look after ourselves.”

“ I don’t take you unless you pay my out-of-pocket
expenses in cash.”

“ What guarantee can you give us that you will buy
the petrol ? ” I asked.

“ What guarantee can you give me that your cheques
will be cashed ? ”

“ We are known to be honest men.”

“ So am I known to be honest.”

“ Supposing Themistocl^ goes with you to buy the oil
and petrol ? ” I suggested.

“ Then I shall want a hundred and fifty instead of one
hxmdred liras” he answered. “ But why bring him in ? I
know my business.”

That was true. These Lazzes were the most successful
criminals in Turkey. If Abdul Hamid or his successors

234 GOLDEN HORN

wanted someone put out of the way, the Lazzes supplied
the assassins or agents provocateurs who did the work and
then vanished ; so also if a Pasha desired a selection of
handmaidens for his harem, the Lazzes had agents in the
bazaars of Tifiis and the mountains of Prester John who
could get him what he wanted : they were always
smuggling out murderers or bootlegging virgins into
Constantinople.

This pirate knew what he was talking about, and would
keep his word

In half an hour we had come to terms and he promised
to have the boat ready and to bring our disguises to us
on the following day.

We were really to start to-morrow !

To-morrow. . . . Ominous word !

After the money had changed hands I looked through
the bedroom curtains into the street below, and saw an
individual loitering at the comer where on the first morning
of our escape a detective had been. I should not have been
alarmed, had he not been joined, as I watched him, by a
blue-suited, befezzed, square-toed person in whom I
thought I recognised a Dog Collar Man in plain clothes.

“ Do you know anything about those men ? ” I asked
the Lazz, taking him to the window.

“ Let me get out ! ” he said, making for the door.

“ Who are they, damn you ? ”

“ Police,” he muttered. He had turned grey with fear.

“ You stay here with us,” I said, standing in front of the
door.

“ Do you want to get us all arrested ? ” he complained.
“ What’s the point of waiting here ? I’ll slip out first,
then you can follow me. I’ll leave a message for you at the
Maritza to say where we can meet to-morrow.”

AN EMERGENCY EXIT 235

There was force in what he urged. He gave us back
our money, and bolted.

We put on our coats and tip-toed downstairs. I thought,
Even if the police are watching the house, they do not
know we are here, or they would have searched it already.
We can still get out at nightfall.

Themistocl6’s mother and sister were sitting in the
pantry. Greeks are so excitable that I did not like to silarm
them with distressing news : it would be better to await
Themistocl6’s return.

The Lazz was clear of the house : he had not been
arrested, for we had heard nothing. So we returned up-
stairs. My friends were packing up their things and dis-
cussing where they would spend the night, when we heard
a loud rapping on the door.

So the worst had come.

I found myself running downstairs two steps at a time.
I must get into the cistern. I must get into the cistern.
I must

I was in the pantry. The street door was being opened
byThemistocle’s sister. The old mother sat calmly with her
knitting. Where were the other members of the household,
I wondered ? What would happen to them ? I lifted the
cistern lid : as I did so the old lady guessed what was
happening, and screamed. I dropped the lid : stood
bewildered behind the pantry door.

Ir^liz zabit ” — I heard from thf street : “ English
officers ”

Themistocl6’s sister was saying ; " Tok,j>ok, effendim.”

Men tramped into the hall.

Why wasn’t I in the cistern ?

I thought. The reflexes of the body are strange. Sounds
and sights have set up vibrations in my head, and my

GOLDEN HORN

236

brain has perceived their meaning and consequences, but
it won’t think now that thinking would be so useful : it
has merely telegraphed orders to my bowels to loosen, and
to my heart to accelerate : what’s the good of that ? I
forced myself to do a little cerebration.

“ Don’t worry,” I said to Themistocl^’s mother, “ you
don’t know who I am ! TeU them you don’t know who
I am.”

I waited a moment, and heard three or four men run
upstairs — they were after my friends, no doubt : there was
a hell of a noise up there. Then I crammed on my bowler
hat and walked out boldly. I thought. How foolish not to
have done this before : I am a Hungarian mechanic :
no one will stop me !

A burly policeman stood at the door. I approached
him with the jauntiness of Charlie Chaplin. He smiled
back, but pointed upstairs. I nodded, as if I knew all
about it, and tried to pass.

“ m ! ”

That abominable monosyllable !

Had I hit the sentry and run for it, I might have
escaped. Instead, I lingered, undecided, until I heard a
torrent of oaths from the stairs behind me : the sentry’s
smile vanished : he seized me and twisted me round,
confronting me with a Dog Collar Man who held a
revolver in his hand. With the revolver pressed into the
small of my back, I was taken to the pantry and searched.

The police had rounded us up very neatly. The Turks
share this characteristic with Englishmen, and bulldogs,
that they have a lazy look about them, but can be
extremely smart when something stirs their blood. The
Dog Collar Man had a canvas bag : into it he put my

AN EMERGENCY EXIT 237

pocket-book, my watch, a compass, loose change, and
my forged passport. My two friends were brought down-
stairs and similarly denuded of their possessions. Up-
stairs a separate squad examined the lodgers. Themistocle’s
mother and sister were given chairs in the hall and told
not to move. Presently Themistocl^ himself was led in
between two policemen.

Whoever the informer against us had been, it had not
been Themistocld. His thick spectacles were broken : his
nose was bloody : his hair rumpled : his collar burst :
his clothes torn : he looked as if someone had been rolling
him in the gutter.

The Dog Collar Man formed us up in a little procession :
first went two policemen to clear the way through the
crowded streets to the Central Civil Jail, then came two
weeping women, a trembling waiter, two stalwart young
Englishmen in stockinged feet and shirt-slee\'cs, and a
seedy-smart individual in a bowler hat no longer worn
at a rakish angle : each of us was held by two guards ;
behind us marched the triumphant Dog Collar Man,

To my surprise the Jail was clean, and fitted with the
most modem appliances for the registration of criminals.
Our finger prints were taken, we were photographed,
weighed, measured, medically examined, card-indexed,
and then locked away in the cells of prisoners awaiting
trial. My room contained a bed, a table, and a chair, all
very solidly made and designed to withstand any access
of despair on the prisoner’s part. The electric light in the
ceiling was covered with wire netting. Wails and wood-
work were of a neutral colour. The windows, which were
barred, had a convenient arrangement for regulating
ventilation. The heavy door was provided with a sliding

GOLDEN HORN

238

hatch which could be opened by the warders for purposes
of investigation. Everything was so civilised that I wished
I could find a little dirt, or a friendly rat or two.

My thoughts were most unpleasant. I had failed, and
innocent people were suffering as the result. My life had
been built upon ambitions which I had not the skill to
achieve. I had meant to be an author on leaving Harrow,
and had had a short story published at the age of eighteen,
but instead of continuing to write I had gone for a
soldier ; and then while a soldier I had dreamed of books
and philosophy. . . I looked at myself now, at the age of
thirty-two, a failure in everything, a muddler who had
not only made a mess of my own affairs, but had placed
the White Lady and Themistocle’s relations in danger. The
only lining to the cloud of my oppression was that the
twins had been absent when the house was raided : I
heard afterwards that they accompanied their great-
grandmother to pay a fortunate visit to a relation.

Who was that bawling in the next cell ?

I stood on a chair, listening through the barred window
and heard my friend shouting that he would leave a note
for me in the East latrine of the three that served us. I
howled back an acknowledgment, so loudly that the
warder opened the slot of my door, and I had to explain
that I was singing.

I found the note, read it, and wrote the reply on a
cigarette paper, using a match as pen, and tobacco juice
and ash as ink. By these simple means we established
regular communication between our three selves ; and
had soon composed a complete, circumstantial, and
wholly fictitious accoixnt of our adventures prior to
capture.

On the afternoon of the second day, while I was

AN EMERGENCY EXIT 239

sitting at my table with my head in my hands, in the
depths of despair, the slot of the door was withdrawn and
instead of a gaoler’s face I saw a pair of black eyes below
straight lashes which met at the nose. They were glamor-
ous eyes, and it was a little nose, wrinkled in laughter : I
jumped to my feet, thinking that I had been dreaming,
but No, someone had left me a stump of lead-pencil :
the vision had been real.

By the usual subterfuge (notes in the latrine, and visits
thereto) I discovered that my benefactor was aa
Armenian girl awaiting trial on a charge of spying. She
had provided us all with writing instruments, but why
she had done so I never learned. I only saw her once,
when we passed in the passage : she was tall and proud,
with a light on her splendid forehead that seemed an aura
of triumph. The grizzled old sentry who accompanied
her looked ape-like beside this lively and lovely creature :
she made the whole prison look foolish : we were sad
little creatures playing a silly game : she was mortal and
beautiful as a tree in spring and we the weevils on its
bark. She was life : our existence turned on hers although
we pretended not to know it. . . .

When we were brought.before the Chief of Police, we
found him a cordial little gentleman who gave us chairs
and cigarettes, asked after our health, hoped that we had
been comfortable. We thanked him for his treatment,
congratulated him on the cleanliness of his jail, but drew
his attention to the mistake made by his detectives in
imprisoning Themistocl^’s mother and sister.

“ They are Turkish subjects,” he answered.

“ But they are innocent. If they are maltreated, we
shall hold you answerable after the war.”

GOLDEN HORN

240

A month ago such a threat woxild not have been of any
avail, but now a change had come over men’s minds —
we felt it even through the walls of the prison — and our
warning carried weight.

“ They are Turkish subjects,” he repeated, “ and are
accused of having given help to our enemies. But you need
have no fear for them, for they will be well looked after.”

We told him that they should not be in prison at all.
No one except ourselves was responsible for our presence
in Themistocle’s house. While at large in the city, I said,
I had followed him back from the Maritza restaurant
to his house, and knowing him to be a Christian I
thought it possible that he might shelter me, but as a
matter of fact he had sent a message to say that he would
have nothing to do with escaping prisoners. My friends
explained that he had accepted them as lodgers believing
them to be Bosnians : they had passed as such in the city,
how then could the short-sighted Themistocl^ be expected
to know that they were British ?

“ That is very interesting,” said the Chief of Police,
“ but you must tell your story to the Commandant of
Constantinople. I am sending you to the Military Prison
to-day.”

Four o’clock that afternoon found us waiting, fretful
and unfed (we had been ordered to be ready at nine ;
it was not until three that our escort appeared) outside
the office of Djevad Bey, the Military Commandant of
Constantinople.

I looked forward to meeting this redoubtable individual,
for he was popularly supposed to be the Lord High
Executioner of the Committee of Union and Prepress,
but when I was ushered into his ornate study I was

AN EMERGENCY EXIT 24I

disappointed. He was a plump, fresh-faced, bourgeois-look-
ing officer in well-cut overalls and patent-leather boots,
with a fine blonde moustache and a long amber cigarette-
holder to match. His grey eyes were full of humour.

“ I am afraid I must ask you some unpleasant questions
about this passport,” he said. “ Did you forge my name ? ”

“ Indeed I didn’t, sir. I wouldn’t dream of doing such
a thing.”

“ How do you account for it being in your possession ? ”

I remained silent.

“ Who forged my name ? ”

“ May I look ? ” I said. “ Is that really your signa-
ture?”

“ It’s a very good imitation. With it you could easily
have left the country.”

“ Wffiat an idiot I was not to use it 1 ” I said with
unfeigned annoyance. “ I bought it from a chance
acquaintance in the bazaar, but I never attached much
importance to it.”

“ You made a mistake. It is of great importance. Of
very serious importance to you, I fear. Where have you
been living all these weeks ? ”

“ I was living in the ruins near the Fatih Mosque,” I
said glibly. “ I used to limch and dine at various caffis
in the city : a different one every day.”

Djevad Bey considered this statement.

“ You must have had some extraordinary adventures I ”

“ Oh, no.”

“ There are many spies in Constantinople,” he con-
tinued. “ We hang some of them, when we catch them.
Others you may meet during your stay here, unless, of
course, a court martial decides that you are to serve your
sentence in the Criminal Jail.”

Q.H

GOLDEN HORN

242

“ By law I am liable to a fortnight’s simple imprison-
ment for attempting to escape.”

“ The Berne Convention does not apply to you,” he
said, giving me a smile and a nasty look at the same time.
“ I want to do the best I can for you, mon ami, but a man
who forges another’s name is a forger before he is an
officer.”

“ Say what you like and do what you like,” I answered.
“ I am in your power. But one thing I ask, and that is that
however you punish me you should liberate the innocent
ThemistocU and his family. True, we were found in their
house, but

“ — I cannot believe what you say,” said Djevad Bey
thoughtfully.

Then

“ Come, as man to man, won’t you tell me who forged
this passport ? ”

“ You have just called me a liar,” I said, “ and there
is no ixse in asking me any more questions.”

I felt faint from lack of food, and staggered against the
table. Djevad Bey offered me a seat, and lit an enormous
cigarette.

“ I am only asking for your good,” he said smoothly.
“ You see my position ? I don’t want to treat you as a
forger, but I must do so unless you can prove yoxir in-
nocence. Think it over. Search your memory. You may be
able to give us some clue. Until then I am afraid you will
be rather unconafortable.”

It was a daimting dungeon to which I was now takeiL
We went downstairs, into darkness, and reached a locked
iron portal. Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entratc . . .

I found myself in a long low room, below ground level,

AN EMERGENCY EXIT 243

filthy with tomato skins and bits of bread. Well-fed rats
were scurrying amongst the garbage, and badly-fed
prisoners were gnawing crusts of bread. A fat man — the
only fat man in that ravenous crew — ^was twiddling his
thumbs in a comer. In another corner an elderly Jew was
combing his beard and looking at himself in a broken
mirror : except for these two, the prisoners gathered
round me, clamouring for news and cigarettes, and gibing
at my appearance. Poor devils, living as they did down
there, where there were no rumours of the outside world
except the cries of beaten men, baiting new prisoners
was a diversion not to be resisted. Some of them tried to
pick my pockets.

“ What are you in for ? ” they asked.

“ Forgery,*’ I said.

My confession went with a swing.

“ Is it easy to learn ? ” asked an Armenian boy in
French. “ I wish you would give me a line on it if it
isn’t too difficult.”

“ I know nothing about it,” I said, pushing my way
out of the crowd : “ I’m innocent.”

“ Innocent ! ” said the Armenian. “ If you say that to
the people upstairs they’ll think you don’t want to bribe
them.”

“ How can they be bribed ? ”

" The usual way,” he answered, robbing his thumb
and forefinger together.

“ With money ? I wish I could buy some food ! ”

The boy laughed.

“ At about eight o’clock a man comes round to sell the
scraps left over from the officers’ restaurant,” he said.
“ Otherwise you’ll have to fill your belly with the black
bread and tomatoes which the bash-chaoush brings us in

244 GOLDEN HORN

the morning. I advise you to maJke friends with the bash-
chaoush to-morrow if you have any money to spare. Only
the rich get out of here — and the dead.’*

I thought, What bliss to be back in Afionkarahissar or
even in the Central Jail. . . .

I rose from the planks on which I had been sitting
(hastily, for the bugs had begun to come out) and paced
the cellar. Shylock was still combing his beard, and
apparently catching things in it ; the fat man was still
twiddling his thumbs — ^would he never stop ? Then I saw
that there were other prisoners more unfortunate than
ourselves : I had not noticed the men in chains.

Half a dozen vaults ran along one side of our room
containing men fettered by wrist and ankle to shackles
that must have weighed a hundred-weight, A sentry
patrolled before them, forbidding us to approach too
closely. When his back was turned, however, one of the
occupants signalled me to come nearer, and begged for a
cigarette. He spoke educated French, and told me that
he had been condemned to death as a spy
“ Listen. You’re an Englishman, aren’t you ? ” he said.
“ Good. Your people owe me money. Can you lend me
five liras ? They say they’re going to hang me, but they
won’t : the war is too nearly over,”

The sentry had reached the end of his beat, and
turned : as he passed us, the prisoner chanted “ Allaha
Akbar," a sentiment to which no Moslem can take excep-
tion.

Then he continued : “ I’ll pay you back when peace is
declared. I’m a rich man. I had many hones : blood
Arabs, Morocco barbs, one of your thoroughbreds out of
Pretty Polly. Now my horses have gone to feed the
Turkish Army, and I’m starving. I’m so weak that I can’t

AN EMERGENCY EXIT 845

drag my chains to the latrine. So sometimes I do my busi-
ness here, and then they beat me ”

He paused to allow the sentry to pass. I extracted a
five lira note from my ctise and wrapped a few cigarettes
in it.

“ Thanks ! You can throw me a matchbox even when
the sentry’s looking,” he said, hiding the money. “ They
don’t mind our smoking .

I did so.

“ God, how good tobacco tastes ! I’ve been here
eighteen months awaiting triad. They’ve bastinadoed me
to make me confess, but they didn’t get anything out of
me. Allahu Akbar ! Allahu Akbar ! ”

“ Haidi effendi, haidS, haidS, said the sentry, thinkin g I
had loitered long enough.

“ Your money will save me,” I heard the prisoner say
before I moved off.

It didn’t, unfortunately.

I thought. At eight o’clock I shall be able to buy some
food : until then I won’t even try to think : I’m dizzy . . .

I found a tap, put my head imder it, felt better.

While I was drying myself with my handkerchief, three
barbers appeared at the gate and stood there clapping
and clacking their strops. On hearing this sound the
prisoners not in chains rushed to the gate as if an angel
of deliverance were beating his wings. This was the occa-
sion of their weekly shave. I wrestled my way out amongst
the first half dozen to be shaved and seized not a barber,
but a passing official. He proved to be a Dog Collar
Man.

“ I’m a British officer,” I said, " and have been put
down here by mistake.”

GOLDEN HORN

246

“ You a British officer ? ”

“ A Captain of Cavailry,” I said, giving him the only
loose lira note I had. “ If you can arrange for me to re-
join the other British ofiicers upstairs, I think I’ll be able
to find another five liras”

“ Pekke, effendim ! ” he answered.

Full of hope, I returned to the barber, but refused either
to be shaved by him or to return through the gate. The
bash-chaoush came and wanted to know what my com-
plaint was. He had seen me talking to the Dog GoUar
Man and guessed that I had given him bakshish ; but I
refused to part with any more : there was no point in
employing too many cooks. Thinking of cooks, I suggested
that he naight send for some food for me from the officers*
restaurant. He answered that I must wait until eight
o’clock.

Before that hour, the Dog Collar Man returned.

“ You are right,” he said. “ There has been a mistake.
Your place is on the upper floor — haiddy effendim.”

I haiddd without once looking back to my fellow
sufferers.^

“ You are going to one of the best rooms in the whole
prison,” said the Dog GoUar Man, as we cUmbed up-
stairs.

Of course I didn’t believe him, but I thanked him none
the less, and produced my magic purse,

“ I am the bash-chaoush of the special police,” he added,
as I did not at once offer him the promised reward, “ My
word is law here. Law ! ” He pointed to his breastplate
of righteousness.

” Am I to be with my friends ? ” I asked.

1 When the armistice with Turkey was declared, I did what little I could
for them ; they were moved to a cleaner room, and a few were released.

AN EMERGENCY EXIT 5247

“ That can’t be arranged. You are to have a room to
yourself.”

“ Then why was I put in one with criminals ? ”

He repeated that it was a mistake. He had been away,
otherwise such a thing could not have happened. Then
he held out his hand quite frankly — and closed it upon my
five liras.

“ I want to send a note to the Netherlands Legation,”
I observed.

“ Tokyyok!'*

“ There would be ten liras for the man who took it.”

“ Tok, yok, effendi ! ”

The Chief Dog Collar Man had his code of what was
fitting, and it did not include allowing prisoners to write
notes to Foreign Powers. I saw his point, and accepted it
the more readily because my letter about the Kut men
had long ago been sent to England through the White
Lady.

I had been told the truth. My room was a good room,
as prison apartments go, and in it had been confined some
of the high officials of the Sultan’s camarilla in 1908. Cer-
tainly it was now inhabited by a very lively tribe of bugs,
and the largest and most energetic fleas I have ever seen,
but that was an old story with me. When one has nothing
to do, the peripheral titillation of vermin combats stagna-
tion : a beauty course might be devised for luxurious
and lazy people in which biting would bring back
their skins from death.

Travellers have written much on vermin : I have myself
contributed to the subject. Repetition is wearisome, but I
must refer once more to these imseen assassins of repose
in the Near East, for they affect the psychology of the

GOLDEN HORN

248

inhabitants jnst as noise and poisonous exhaust gasses
affect our minds in Western cities.

Why, I thought, has God made beasts to live on human
blood ? It seems unnecessary. To men their existence is
a curse, and to the bugs themselves life can be nothing
but an arid struggle with a few purple patches of surfeit.
What do the bugs do when this room is empty ? There is
no doubt that Nature makes muddles, in spite of her
amazing efforts at balance and adaptation.

Were the Manichaeans right to believe in the powers
of darkness ? Was their dreadful bifrons a reality ? Saint
Augustine had subscribed to their philosophy for some
years : no doubt he had suffered in these parts of the
world as I was doing. Would our Age of Steel breed a
neo-Manichaenism ? The old lethargy, the M^nichaean
Dark, still haunts mankind, but we have transferred it
from our brains to our bowels. Superstition and vermin
go together : so do civilisation and lazy colons : instead
of cimex rotundatus we have streptococcus colt.

But the fleas restored my faith in life : they were not
sinister like the bugs, and reminded me of Italy, and
especially — by one of those abrupt transitions common to
the lonely — of a night in Rome ten or a dozen years ago,
when I had gone to see the image of the Holy Child in
the Church of Santa Maria in Ara Coeli.

Some time in the fifteenth century, when Muhamed the
Conqueror was preparing for the downfall of the Byzan-
tine Empire, an unknown Franciscan friar had made a
figure of the Infant Jesus out of the olive wood of the
Garden of Gethsemane and brought it to his mother-
Church on the Capitoline HiU : he had carved it with no
great craftsmanship, but with an abounding love of its

AN EMERGENCY EXIT 249

subject, SO that there is an aura of devotion about it, a
glimpse of something miraculous in the heart of man,
greater than any skill or wisdom. Soon the Santissimo
Bambino Benedetto became famous throughout Christen-
dom : it healed the sick, blessed the dying and wrought
innumerable wonders, as it still does, through the opera-
tion of Divine Love. A few years before my visit the Pope
had given it a gold crown.

Why I was drawn to the Bambino I do not know, for
I was a Sandhurst cadet at the time, but immediately I
saw the image, it recalled something so deep in me that
I could not follow where memory led.

It was a cold day, and the church was rather dark, and
fiUed with worshippers. As I stood there in the throng,
collecting a number of fleas, my eyes met the jewel-eyes of
the Bambino, irradiated by the flicker of candles, and
immediately I wanted to pray, but could not. A power-
lessness stole over my mind and limbs, yet the eyes that
held mine warmed me through and through : in them
I seemed to see the Light of Life itself. I began to tremble,
as if some outside power were manifesting a private earth-
quake which I could perceive in my Self without feeling
it with carnal sense.

Such experiences arc not easily put in words. I may
have been self-mesmerised, or else some current of the
Infinite took possession of the viable flesh of boyhood.

I lit a candle now — not in Rome but again in the prison
of the Ministry of War — and began to watch the activity
of the bugs with more detachment.

Could one tame them ? Make them draw a cart ? Show
them in a circus ? They had character, individuality,
distinct personalities : a world seethed over my body.

GOLDEN HORN

250

Full-bellied millionaires lived here, who had gone direct to
their fountain of life ; and hungry, lean paupers, darting
about in the wrong places : was it possible that the pains
and passions of mankind were duplicated in the so-called
lower orders of existence ? Why not ? Small lives and
microscopic lives may be just as important as ours : there
is no cosmic criterion : it is mere arrogance to believe
that our narrow span of sentience is the Universal Con-
sciousness. Are we gods to bugs, or only their sacred kine ?

Perhaps these creatures comforted themselves with
similar ideab to my own : success in blood-sucking was
not the end of life ; God was in His Heaven, and Yeats-
Brown lying on his bed. Families came out to feast : sons
and mothers, fathers and daughters, displaying a pertina-
city and ingenuity which showed that within their little
breasts beat the Will-to-Power, and no doubt gentler
emotions at the appropriate seasons.

I thought, God, what a world ! Bugs and rhinoceroses,
elephants and bacilli, fleas and thoroughbred stallions all
evolved through — what ? Chance ? Creative Evolution ?
Why ? Whither ? Priests and professors have equally fan-
tastic answers. Life exists : it is convenient to call it God,
and His world a picture on which is depicted both evil of
the night and glory of the dawn. I must accept the pic-
ture : I cannot complain of the shadow : without it there
would be nothing. . . .

So musing, I fell asleep, and although my riddles were
unsolved I had stepped out of the brittle shell of egoism ;
I was but a ripple in a cosmic ocean : I was one with
God’s creatures : large, small, queer, queerer, queerest,
we were One, though men called us by different names.

These meditations, which had seemingly lasted an
endless time, must in reality have been brief for I was

AN EMERGENCY EXIT 25I

awakened at half-past nine by a chaoush^ who brought me
a dish of haricot beans from the restaurant.

Having eaten, I dozed and scratched more or less con-
tentedly till morning-light.

At noon next day another meal was brought to me, and
again at six o* clock. No one was allowed to speak to me,
nor was I permitted to leave my room except to go to the
latrine, which was disagreeably close to my door. I was
in solitary confinement.

Verylittlehas been written about this punishment, which
exists not only in Turkey but in all civilised prisons to-day.

The spirit of man is more than his poor flesh ; the war
taught us that, if we did not know it before. But it is a pity
that so many of those who learned that high lesson should
have been killed in the practice of it : hence there is an
undue proportion of sentimentalists in England to-day*
These good people, who sometimes have no compunction
in keeping creatures in cages, even those whose glory is
flight, profess a great sensitiveness to certain punishments,
particularly flogging and hanging. I would suggest that
there are worse cruelties than the cat of nine tails and the
gallows : for instance, long terms of penal servitude, and
solitary confinement

Penal servitude merely shirks the problem of law-
breakers by locking them away out of sight, where senti-
mentalists cannot see the long slow torture that saps the
brain of a felon.

As to solitary confinement, it is a discipline fit only for
saints : to throw minds which need the help of their fel-
lows back into the turmoil of their sick selves is as foolish
as it is cruel.

But the alternative would shock our sentimentalists : the
State would have to choose some prisoners for reformation

25a GOLDEN HORN

and others for destruction : some would be helped by ex-
pert psychologists, who would take infinite trouble with
them, while the remainder would have to be condemned
to death, or at best given a sporting chance at the hands
of vivisectionists, who would then, incidentally, have the
only material — the human — that can justify their experi-
ments both ethically and scientifically.

“ We cannot afford to keep you,” should be the verdict
of the State on the habitual offender and hopeless degener-
ate. “ If we had u n limited time and money we would
gladly do more for you, but our doctors and nurses and
gaolers are required for those who respond better to our
treatment. We are going to spend money on child welfare
rather than on prisons. In short, we don’t want to lose
you, but ”

Have I been brutalised by my experiences, or awakened
by them to a sense of realities ? The reader must judge.

Time passed slowly. My sentries were surly. The Chief
Dog Collar Man and his satellites refused further bribes.
There were no smiles, no shaving materials, no scissors to
be had in my present situation. Lack of the latter worried
me more than a little : I gnawed my nails and singed my
hair, but self-respect is more dependent on a cutting edge
than we imagine : prehistoric man wanted it, and so do we,

I adopted a regular routine for my days.

Early mornings were devoted to walking briskly up and
down my room in various gaits and miens — the sailor’s
roll, the Prussian strut, Josephine’s tittup, the Byronic
limp. I was Napoleon on the deck of the Bellertphon,
Asquith declaring that we would not sheathe the sword,
Sultan Bayazid braving the scorn of Tamerlane, myself
entering Baghdad with snotty face, Baber calling on his

AN EMERGENCY EXIT 253

nobleman and soldiers to forswear intoxicants before the
battle which gave him the sceptre of Hindustan. ‘

In the forenoon I played games, such as throwing my
watch to the ceiling and catching it again, juggling with
cigarettes, tampering with the electric light bulb so that
the sentry should give himself a shock when putting it
right, and holding some of the more peculiar postures of
Yoga. I found amusement also in my nickel-gilt watch-
chain, which I made into an absorbing puzzle.

I could engage in no serious meditations. Yoga would
have occupied me to good purpose ; but now, although
my body was healthy, my mind was not. There must be
peace as well as purity before that Way is trodden.

The afternoon was generally passed in the sleep which
the bugs denied me by night, but the evening was a bad
time. It was then, as at Mosul, that the strange fever
of life seemed most inexorable : sometimes it surged
from brain to bowels like a storm on a rock-bound
coast, and sometimes, in deceiving stillness, it lickcred in
wavelets up my spine, which was aware in itself of a
rhythm in conflict with that of my watch : two million fiive
hundred and ninety-two thousand seconds had to pass to
make a month. Five — ten — fifteen had gone — how long
would it be before I went mad ?

My window gave on to a narrow courtyard. Sometimes
I still hear the dull sound of wood on flesh, and hear the
one tormented cry that made it a place of horror.

1 ** Bach soul who comes to the feast of life must drink also from the cup
of death ** : words with a fine ring, which I repeated often. All my belong*
ings except the forged passport had been returned to me on leaving the
Central Jail — even my compass, which the police mistook for a second
watch. Incidents such as this smoothed the prisoncr*s path in Turkey.
There was no criminal so poor or so neglected that he did not contrive to buy
or beg a few cigarettes a day : we who could cash cheques suffered chieEy
firom dirt and lack of exercise, which arc lesser trials than hunger.

GOLDEN HORN

254

The chained spy whom I had met in the cellar was
carried out here by two sentries : I waved to him, think-
ing that he w£is to be allowed to sit in the fresh air.

But no, they were going to beat him.

He stared up at my window, unseeing. A gaoler un-
fastened his fetters, tied his ankles together with twine,
put a pole between them. The sentries lifted up the pole
so that he himg head-downwards, with his soles upper-
most.

I wanted to look away, but could not.

The gaoler took a stick of the thickness of a broom-
handle, swung back with it, struck. Could this be ? The
man was already half dead.

He struck again and again at the white feet until they
turned red : then the body below them writhed and I
heard a thin sound from it. I ran to the latrine and was
sick. When I returned the sentries had laid the victim
down, and the gaoler was offering him water. I am not
sure whether he died then, or later.

For some days after witnessing this scene I could not
cat, for thinking of the spy.

I had thought, after seeing him bastinadoed, that the
memory would haunt me for ever. It still surges up some-
times, mockingly, menacingly, always at incongruous
moments, when I am enjoying myself. Yet within less
than a week I was my normal self-K)n the surface — think-
ing out ways of passing the time or surprising the sentries.

I found that if I stood on my head, or on the back of my
neck, wearing my eyeglass, with the door ajar, somebody
sometimes came in to save me from suicide. The Chief
Dog Collar Man had done so once ; and although he was
now disillusioned or indifferent, such exercises still served

AN EMERGENCY EXIT 255

to amuse me and collect a few of the less strictly confined
prisoners as spectators. While upside-down one afternoon
I became aware of a well-known voice protesting : “ Leave
me alone, you son of Belial ! Isn’t an open door meant to
look through ? ”

It was Peter.

Before his sentry could drag him away we had arranged
to leave notes for each other in the usual place. Bit by bit,
I learned his story, of which I can only give an outline
here.

He had sailed on his melon boat, and after disembarking
at Rodosto, had made his way as far as Malgara. While
asleep there, he was recognised as a fugitive, and im-
prisoned, with nothing but black bread to eat. For three
days he went on hunger strike, and nearly died. Later,
he was allowed to purchase a liberal diet, including even
wine and cigars, but his constitution being enfeebled by
privation he developed swellings over his face and scalp,
which were probably due to some noxious ingredient in
the hair dye he had used. In this condition he was sent to
a hospital in Pera, and from there he again escaped.

A Greek patient was now his accomplice. Giving liim
ten pounds for the purchase of a disguise, Peter made
an appointment with him for nine o’clock outside the
German Embassy, and set out on his adventures dressed in
a white nightshirt. (When I saw the place after the
Armistice, patients were then saying : “ Here is where a
British officer got away — thus did he climb — ^past the
sentries — along that buttress — down into the street by the
guard-house ! ”)

He arrived punctually at his rendezvous, but the Greek
was not there : he was wenching and wining with the

256 GOLDEN HORN

money he had received for a disguise. For half an hour
Peter waited in the shadows of a side street leading to the
sea, but at last, cold, disconsolate, expecting to be arrested
at any minute, he walked up to the Grand Rue de Pera,
crossed that busy thoroughfare like a sheeted ghost, and
dipped down into the ruins beyond.

While sitting amongst the tombstones, wondering what
to do next, fate sent him a fat boy.

“ Give me your clothes,” said Peter, seizing him.

“ Who are you ? ” asked the terrified boy, beginning to
cry.

“ A brigand 1 ”

Thereupon the boy dried his tears and took off his
clothes in a business-like way. Brigands were common : he
did not much mind being robbed, but had been afraid that
Peter was one of the djinns that haunt the cemeteries of
Islam.

Peter gave him a good tip and took his coat and
trousen : his boots he rejected, being unable to squeeze
into them. For several days he dodged about the city,
wearing hospital slippers and a coat whose sleeves reached
halfway down his arm, until, just when his strength and
his funds were exhausted, he found a house to give hi m
shelter. From here he made a plan to escape, but was
recaught through treachery at the docks, and taken back
to the Military Prison.

And now fate had brought us. together again ; I did
not doubt that we would engage on more adventures.

An aeroplane raid varied the monotony of my days. A
bomb exploded close, and shattered half the glass in the
prison. All the prisoners ran into the passages, myself
included ; and in contrast to the panic inside, 1 saw a

AN EMERGENCY EXIT 257

curioTJs sight outside, where the bomb had blown a large
tree to smithereens.

While the sky was still white with bursting shells, a very
leisurely old Turk arrived with his donkey to collect the
pieces of the blasted tree for firewood. Fuel was hard to
come by these days, and here was some sent by Allah !
What did he care for aeroplanes sind falling shrapnel ?

This calm of the true Turk makes him the good soldier
that he is, but his equanimity is not jJways shared by his
superiors in culture, whose breeding is more mixed. In our
prison, I saw an officer lying flat on his face in terror of
the bombing, and many others did not behave with
coolness. Of course we saw the worst of the Turkish
“ upper classes ” here, for they were all being punished
for some misdemeanour.

One morning I was brought before a court martial —
I presume to investigate the matter of my passport.
Neither judge nor assessor understood French, but there
was an interpreter with whom I made up arrears of talk.
The court wanted to hear the story of my escape ; nothing
loth to use my tongue, I drew upon my imagination for two
hours, and had not yet reached the episode of the forger
when I was remanded. That was the last I heard of my
crime : no doubt the court would have returned to my
case in a month or two if I had remained under its juris-
diction.

When Djevad Bey appeared for his next weekly in-
spection I demanded a Bible to read, an hour’s exercise a
day, a weekly bath, scissors, shaving tackle.

“ You must have a little patience, mon cher,” he replied.
“ In a little time, perhaps, when I have discovered more
about that forger ”

“ I have told you, sir, that I know nothing about him.”

Rb

GOLDEN HORN

258

“ Well, it doesn’t matter,” he said surprisingly : “ we
have him in prison already, with your friend Themistocl^,
Go out and take the fresh air, my friend — ^you look as if
you needed it ! ”

“ But I am not allowed into the garden ! ”

“ Surely you are ? There must be some mistake. You
can go out now, immediately. The view is one of the
finest in Europe.”

And with that, he moved away, followed by his re-
splendent retinue.

Dazed by so much kindness, and convinced that we
must be winning the war very quickly, I followed a smiling
sentry into the fresh air. Certainly the view was glorious.
Before me stretched the Golden Horn crowded with
lateen-boats drying their sails : the Marmora lay beyond,
in a blaze of blue, and on the horizon I could just see the
Bosphorus, most splendid of the world’s sea-roads.

But I had other things to think of than the view. No-one
had ever escaped from this gloomy fortress : its many sen-
tries, its massive walls, and its situation in the heart of the
most Moslem quarter of Stambul made the difficulties
seem almost unsurmounlable, yet I had a strong con-
viction that I would succeed in doing so. Faith often fails
to justify itself as the world judges events, yet it also
achieves miracles. Those who trust in God believe also in
themselves, and somehow or other — the How is an
academic question — the miracles occur.

While admiring the view, I put my head through the
railings on the side farthest from our cells and ascertained
several things. Tp begin with, the railings here were
spaced at sufficient width to allow a man’s body to pass,
since they had admitted my head ; also a street ran below
the garden, so that if we could make or procure some

AN EMERGENCY EXIT

259

rope we might escape that way ; and finally, I had time to
see that although the garden itself ended to the right of me
in the wall of an adjoining house, the garden railings con-
tinued along the outer face of the waU (no doubt the

Appratinate Scale ef Yards,

a Mosque and
I School

I i to Subfli

Subfme ^pte

house had been built after the garden had been made) so
mat anyone who had once succeeded in getting through
the railings unobserved would be able to climb along
them away from the sentries. I knew, however, that by
merely getting out of the garden we would not be out of

GOLDEN HORN

a6o

prison, for the garden was only a small enclosure within
the main square of the Ministry of War, which was sur-
rounded on all sides by walls or railings. But in the main
square there was a garage containing the cars of the
Headquarters Staff, and it seemed to me just possible that
we might walk into it pretending that we were mechanics
and drive away in the largest and swiftest car that we
could find, bluffing any sentries who attempted to stop us.

With these thoughts in mind, I returned to my room
well satisfied, and was writing of my discoveries to Peter,
when a young and strikingly handsome Turkish officer
burst into my room.

“ Excuse my interrupting ” he began.

“ You are not interrupting me at all,” I answered ; “ I
wish you’d stop Have a cigarette ? I haven’t had a
friendly talk to anyone for nearly a month.”

“ I wish I could, but I haven’t time just now. It’s
against the rules, isn’t it ? Not that I mind that. I say, will
you allow me to offer you one of my cigarettes ? — they’re
the Sultan’s brand, you know. Better take the box.
Frankly, I want to borrow something from you. I saw
you wearing an eye-glass the other day : will you lend it
to me so that I can wear it at to-day’s Selamlik ? ”

“ Anything I have is yours,” I said.

“ I hope we’U be friends,” he answered, wistfully.

I wondered. He had the longest eyelashes I had ever
seen, and the kind of seraphic face sometimes found in
those who are “ old in the world, tho’ scarcely broke from
school.”

“ By the way,” he said, “ you wanted to communicate
with the Dutch Minister, didn’t you ? ”

“ I ? How did you get that idea ? ”

“ They told me in the Censor’s office that an envelope of

AN EMERGENCY EXIT sSl

yours addressed to him was found when you entered
hospital. There was some tissue paper inside, which they
tested for invisible ink. Now if you will give me the
message ”

“ Oh, that ! No, I had thought of writing to him, but I
have been so kindly treated by your countrymen that I
have changed my mind.”

“ We will be friends, won’t we, after the war ? ”

“ I hope so, and the sooner Turkey and England make
friends, the sooner the war will be over.”

He nodded agreement, and screwed in my eyeglass.

“ This’ll give the Sultan fits ! ” he said. “ Have you a
mirror ? ”

“ I’m afraid not.”

” What a shame ! My eunuch will get you what you
want. Just tell him to charge it to my account.”

“ Thanks awfully, but I would like to pay for my own
things, if he wouldn’t mind cashing a cheque for me.”

“ Don’t worry about that. I say, I must be off. Tell me
what you want most.”

“ Get me something to read 1 ”

“ That’s easy. Au revoir ! ”

Next day, his small negro threw twenty leaflets into my
door when the sentry’s back was turned, and strolled away
whistling They were the adventures of Nat Pinkerton in
French : I consumed them slowly, blunting the lion-paws
of time by breaking off always at a critical juncture in the
great detective’s affairs.

My life flowed in more agreeable channels now. The
etmuch returned in the evening with my eyeglass and a
basket of fruit from Yildiz Kiosk. He spoke French as
fluently as his master, and was less jerky and erratic :
indeed, he was a remarkable little fellow, with an uncanny

262

GOLDEN HORN

brain and uncanny strength : no one dared to interfere
with him much : when a sentry tried to pull him out of
my room by main force, he put his head between the
sentry’s legs and carried him away on his back.

From him I learned his master’s history. He was a
Damad, the eunuch told me, that is to say, one of the
numerous sons-in-law of the Sultan ; and had been im-
prisoned for shooting his tutor, an elderly Colonel, who
had tried to restrain the havoc of his pupil’s fascinating
eyes amongst the odalisques of the Palace. In doing so,
said the eunuch, he had damaged some valuable furni-
ture. Of course there was trouble about it. The Damad
declared that the Colonel had made improper advances
to him and that he had used his weapon in self-defence,
but there was a lady in the case who had been unable
to disguise the fact that someone had been tampering
with her virtue, and she had inculpated the Damad.
Had she been a common dancing girl the affair might
have been hushed up, but she was a present from an
influential Sheikh of Eastern Anatolia ; besides, the
Damad’s wife had made a scene. So now he was ex-
piating his exuberances by three months’ confinement to
barracks (not an unduly severe punishment, I thought)
with the prospect of a month’s remission of sentence if he
behaved himself.

I awaited his return with interest. When he visited
me on Monday I suggested a little scheme to him whose
planning had whiled away some hours. I said that I knew
that Turkey wanted to make peace with the Allied
Powers, and that he and I might contrive to be smuggled
out of the country in order to negotiate an armistice. He
thought this a splendid idea.

I drew the longest bow I dared about my status in

AN EMERGENCY EXIT 263

England : I assured him that I was practically a Damad
myself : we would go to Smyrna (there was a pro-Entente
Vali there) and thence by destroyer to Mytelene. From
Mytelene I would telegraph to my friend the Prime
Minister, who woxild summon us to a Selamlik in London.
Meanwhile, I added, it was necessary to keep in touch
with affairs here, and I should be much more iiseful
outside the prison than inside it.

He said that he would consider my proposals carefully.
Every morning now, the eunuch brought me the French
and German papers of Constantinople.

Towards the middle of September, the stars in their
courses conspired to give Peter and me our freedom.
First we were allowed to go to the baths together, which
gave us the opportunity of repeating our tactics in July —
lunch, beer, illicit purchases — so exactly that they need
not be retold. A few days later, the Damad unwittingly
furthered our plans. Our difficulty had been that although
we were allowed to walk in the garden for an hour a day,
we were never allowed to take our exercise together. I
had already explained to the Damad that my friend Peter
was a Power behind the Throne, and that in any negoti-
ations between our two countries his assistance would be
invaluable. On the evening that we heard that Allenby’s
cavalry were sweeping up through Syria, the Damad was
particularly friendly.

“ Why can’t we talk in the garden ? ” I suggested. “ It
is much pleasjmter there : surely you can arrange with
the bash-chaoush that my friend should join us ? ”

There was no difficulty.

The three of us conversed for a little time, but it was a
hot evening : the Damad didn’t care for exercise and we

GOLDEN HORN

264

liked walking at top-speed : presently he said that he must
leave us. We bade him a cordial good-night (to me it
seemed as if a Higher Power were wafting him away) and
made an appointment (which we trusted we would not be
in a position to keep) to meet in the garden on the
following day at the same time.

As soon as he had left us, we went to the far side of the
garden, where the railings were. Six sentries were supposed
to be looking after us, but they were strolling about in
three groups, gazing, enviously, at the Greek clerks who
were arriving for a square meal in the restaurant near the
entrance gate.

We moved behind a bush, put our heads through the
railings, looked down into the street. Alas, I had forgotten
to estimate the height we were above it : now we saw that
a hundred-foot precipice stretched below us. Between us
we had only sixty feet of rope,^ so that if we had tried that
way out we should have been left dangling in mid-air
with the sentries practising their marksmanship on us
from above. For to-night, at least, we were foiled in this
direction : later, if all else failed, we might perhaps tear a
prison blanket into strips and try again with a longer rope.

The alternative plan seemed possible, however, and
needed no accessories. We would get through the railings,
climb along outside the garden to the garage in the main
square, squeeze back through the railings here (for the
drop was still too difEcult to negotiate) and walk into the
garage pretending to be mechanics : after that anything
might happen ; everything seemed possible to us that night.

Peter had bought this rope ostensibly to re-string a prison bed. We
divided it into two parts and wore it round our waists whenever there was
a chance that we would be allowed to leave our rooms. We also concealed
upon our persons a fez each, and money in the soles of our shoes.

AN EMERGENCY EXIT 865

Peter went first : next instant I forced my flinching
flesh through another aperture, anticipating a bullet in
my behind.

Silence. Safety. We were on the outer side of the
railings. The sun had set, and twilight would favour us.
We had to climb ten yards before we reached the sheltering
wall, during which our hands and the top of our heads
would be visible to the sentries, if they looked in our
direction. Fortunately they remained entirely unsuspect-
ing : the fact that there were six of them helped rather
than hindered us, for each one thought that we must be
walking in a part of the garden visible to the others.

After a few seconds’ pause for breath, we clambered
rapidly towards liberty — as we thought.

But we thought wrong. The wall we had to cross had a
window in it which we had not been able to see from the
garden, and at it sat three men, discussing a lobster and a
bottle. It was a cheery little party : I could smell the sea
of their dish and the aniseed of their 'araq, and detect the
thickened tones of men talking in their cups. One of the
diners waved his hand towards the reflection of the after-
glow over Scutari. They were nature lovers, like many
Turks, and good companions, but to have interposed
ourselves between them and the view would have been
madness : equally impossible was it for us to remain as we
were, like wingless flies, for in a few minutes the sentries
would probably notice our absence.

It was not pleasant, clinging to that ledge, with the
prospect of discovery both in front and behind, and a
precipice below. We crawled back sadly, but rapidly. I
thought, How irritating it will be if we are shot as we
arc getting back into prison !

We weren’t. The sentries had been called by the

GOLDEN HORN

266

bash-chaoush, who was at our prison door, perhaps asking
what had become of us. While their backs were turned,
we climbed through the railings unobserved, dusted
ourselves, continued our walk as if nothing had happened.

“ Haidi, effendim — time to go in,” said the bash-chaoush
as we strolled by him. We pleaded for another five
minutes in the cool of the evening and he trustingly
consented.

And then to both of us, simultaneously, severally, an
idea came. We would mix with the Greek clerks who
were leaving the garden after their supper, and pass out of
prison with them. That was all we had to do — all we did.
It was so easy, that it now seems extraordinary that we
did not think of it before.

There was a patch of deep shadow near the restaurant,
by a magnolia bush. Here we threw away our European
hats and drew out fezes which we had concealed beneath
our waistcoats for just such an emergency. The dye had
not entirely worked out of our hair and moustaches, and
we had both lived so long as under-dogs in a city of
intrigue that we knew the gait and manner of the Levan-
tine. Without further disguise we were passable imitations
of Greeks.

We walked slowly, very, very slowly to the gate. Each
clerk was supposed to produce a pass, and be checked out
by the sentry. But the sentry merely leaned against the
gate and let the stream flow by. We went with the flood
tide : a tide that led to fortune.

To quicken our pace was a temptation difficult to
resist ; having gone so far, we longed to run, but had we
done so, we should certainly have been observed and
recaptured. Yet at any moment the sentries in the garden
might miss us.

AN EMERGENCY EXIT 267

“ Are we going into the garage ? ” I asked Peter
doubtfully.

We were already half way to freedom in the main
square : if we went to the garage we might easily become
involved in some argument there, or else the car we chose
might not start. We had already been lucky with one
sentry : perhaps the guards at the main gate would be
equally careless. Why waste time in trying to get a car
when we might escape on our feet ? But would our luck
hold ? Was it possible that we could walk out unques-
tioned and unsuspected ?

While we hesitated, an individual came up behind us
who settled the matter. After passing, he turned round to
stare, and we saw that he was a Turkish officer. We
returned his scrutiny with composure, but it was
obvious that he did not like the look of us.

Hurrying a little, he went on to the main gate and called
out the sergeant of the guard. We saw them both peering
into the gathering darkness in our direction, and had no
doubt that they were talking about us. We could not now
approach either the garage or the main gate, so we slunk
diagonally across the square, towards a side gate, which
was evidently locked at this time of night although a
sentry paced before it.

Near it, some trees afforded us a little cover : we must
be quick and get through the railings here, before the hue
and cry began. But the railings were more closely spaced
than those in the garden : we stuck in them, wriggled
back, climbed over. They were ten foot high and spiked
on top : while on the summit I surveyed the last of my
captivity !

Good-bye sentries, filth, days of boredom, nights of
irritated impotence !

GOLDEN HORN

268

We jumped down into the middle of a busy street, but
those who saw us looked the other way. We were appar-
ently burglars, and no one interfered with such people in
Stambul unless paid to do so.

I thought. This is indeed a miracle ! For weeks, months,
years we have schemed and hoped : we have made many
plans : this very evening we have attempted two and
failed to execute them, but now we have succeeded by
the simplest means : the way has been made clear for us :
God said, “ Let there be light,” and the light has come
into our minds. . . .

We crossed the tramway lines unmolested, dived into a
passage leading down hill, and ran.

We had no doubt that our escape would soon be
reported all over Constantinople. We ran on without stop-
ping, avoiding main streets and police posts until we
reached the Old Bridge across the Golden Horn. Here we
decided to separate for the time, so that if one of us was
caught by the toll-keepers the other could still make good
his escape. But the toll-keepers took their tribute without
demur. They cared nothing about British prisoners.

Crossing, we turned right-handed, passed behind the
American Ambassador’s yacht Scorpion at her berth near
the Turkish Admiralty, and went up into the European
quarter. In Pera we were safe.

CHAPTER XI

STAMBUL SUBMITS

It was nearly two months after our escape on
September the 15th that I learned from the bash-chaoush
who had been in charge of us what had happened when
the sentries had missed us in the garden. Not finding us
here, they reported our disappearance to him, and he
and they, assisted by the Damad, who had been the last
to speak to us, searched through all the prison, thinking
that we might have gone to our rooms, or to the restaurant,
or be hiding with other prisoners. Itwas notun til the eunuch
had suggested that the rope which Peter had bought to
re-string his bed might have been used for other purposes,
that they began to admit that we had escaped. Even
then they did not tell the Commandant, fearing his wrath ;
and he was not informed until next morning. Thereupon
all our guardians were cast into the lowest prison, and
the Damad was informed that he also would be punished
unless he could discover our whereabouts. .

Meanwhile we had gone to Young George, who refused
to take us in (no doubt rightly, for his father was
the White Lady’s tailor and might have been sus-
pected) but led us to a friend’s lodging-house in the
suburb of Chichli, where he explained that we were
Austro-Hungarian deserters, ready to pay well for our
accommodation.

Although our initial haste had been needless, we had
been right in supposing that our escape would create a

270 GOLDEN HORN

Stir in Constantinople. It was reported in the newspapers,
a rew3ird was offered for our recapture, and the Damad
came to the White Lady, to say that we had told him before
escaping that she would know where we were living.
Would she please take him to us, since he had an impor-
tant message to give us ?

The Damad was very young to think that she would
fall into such a trap.

So we had escaped again ! she said, in surprise. Wasn’t
that rather careless of the authorities ? But perhaps, she
added, Djevad Bey had some plan in letting us loose ?
If the Damad would give her his message, she would
certainly pass it on to us if we came to see her. He went
away discomfited.

“ The Germans have been pushed back : communication is
cut between Germany and Turkey. Unless all Germans leave
Turkey, bombing will continue*' So ran a message dropped
by an aeroplane on September the 29th, giving us the
first definite news that the keystone of the German arch
was crumbling.

Germany had recently given Bulgaria half the Dobrouja
(which the Turks claimed belonged to them) as a bribe
to continue fighting ; but even so, there had been rumours
that her troops were mutinous and exhausted. Now that
the Fox of the Balkans had doubled on his tracks, even
the staunchest of Turkish patriots began to feel that after
ten years of revolution and war their country deserved
peace. Constantinople seethed with discontent against
the Committee of Union and Progress, which we were
sedulous in fostering.

At this time the White Lady was in touch with various
high officials in the Turkish Govenunent who were in

STAMBUL SUBMITS

271

favour of peace, and had already helped General Towns-
hend and Colonel Newcombe (both prisoners of war)
to leave the country in order that they might assist in the
Armistice negotiations. And to Peter and me, she gave an
astonishing message : the news that she had originally in-
tended that we should take to our Intelligence Depart-
ment had been concerned with various concealed depots
of arms and ammunition : they would now soon be taken
over by the Allies, and a large fast car was required by
our advance forces in order to enable them to seek out
these caches. From the funds at her disposal she gave us
a bag containing three hundred sovereigns with which
to obtain such a car. It was to be ready, with spare tyres,
oil, and petrol as soon as theFleet entered Constantinople.

I sought out my smuggling acquaintances, who were
now engaged in securing possession of property being
abandoned by the Germans, and learned that General
Liman von Sanders had a powerful touring Merc^d^s,
which would suit our need exactly.

Peter and I met the Profiteer and Francesco — two of
our doubtful friends — in a caf<§ in Galata, where we dis-
cussed the buying of the Merc^d^ over a bottle of Kirsch.
A certain Prussian sergeant would act as our intermediary,
said Francesco : this Rudolph — ^as he called him — ^knew
the ropes of the German Staff garage, and would be able
to approach the Commander-in-Chief’s chauffeur.

The difficulty was the price. Francesco wanted five hun-
dred pounds.

“ It is about ten times what we are prepared to give,”

I said.

We haggled over our Kirsch, regardless of the sullen
Germans and anxious Turks who eddied about the
restaurant.

GOLDEN HORN

272

“ I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said the Profiteer, who was
bored by the pettiness we displayed. “ I’ll sell you a
complete German park — twenty-six trucks and eleven
automobiles — at a flat rate of twenty pounds sterling
each. That’s a bargain ! ”

“ It’s not ! ” said Peter. “ We wouldn’t take your park
as a gift. With the whole town busy thieving, it will
be hard enough to look after even one car.”

“ No one ever steals anything from me,” said the
Profiteer, “ but do as you like. You will have to pay much
more if you buy in small quantities.”

“ We are prepared to go up to fifty pounds.”

“ For my commission ? ” asked the Profiteer.

“ For the car.”

“At least four people will be working for you —
myself, Francesco, Rudolph, and the chauffeur. We
have to live, you know.”

“ Name your total price — then we’ll tell you whether
we can pay it.”

“ A hundred and fifty pounds.”

“ We’ll give you a hundred and thirty-five.”

“ Done,” said the Profiteer promptly. “ In gold sover-
eigns, of course. I’ll send the car round with one of my
men at about ten o’clock to-night. But remember, I’m
only doing this little job to oblige friends : you want a
car, and I happen to have one which suits you. I’m a
contractor, not a pedlar.”

We went our ways. I dined off a biscuit, for I had been
eating and drinking too much of late, and needed a clear
head, not so much for this night’s work of stealing a
motor-car (the great Allied Fleet would soon arrive and
probably commandeer hundreds) but totry toadjustmyself
to the new era that was beginning. Curious, I thought,

STAMBUL SUBMITS

273

what parts we play in life. One moment an airman ;
next a harassed fugitive ; next a friend of gangsters,
buying the car of the enemy Commander-in-Chief with
secret gold ; after that — what ? We had watched history
as it is rarely written, but most strangely lived by a
people on the brink of dissolution and disaster : we had
been in the thick of great events, but they had made and
were making but little impression on us, for our nerves
refused to register new impressions after the stresses of
the preceding months. I could not believe that I would
soon wake up and find myself free. I thought of Benares.
“ When your breathing is equable,” my gum had said,
“you will have peace of mind whether you are being
jostled in the market place, or axe sitting alone on a
black antelope skin.”

My breathing ! I had not thought of it for years ; and
certainly could not now. The air was stagnant. Clouds
blanketed the city. It seemed to me as if the world was
waiting for something to happen.

I sat impatiently, too restless to read, lighting one
cigarette from the end of another. The madness of war
was mounting to a climax ; soon it would be over, and my
little part be played. What a poor little part !

Then the rain came down by bucketfuls, heralded by
a clap of thunder.

Someone rapped at the door. I opened it, and foxmd the
Italian there, already soaked to the skin. He was a
curious, polyglot creature, with no talents but the gift
of tongues.

“ I have come,” he said.

“ So I sec. But don’t stand there — come in.”

“ Are you alone ? ”

Of course.”

Sh

GOLDEN HORN

274

He looked round him anxiously while I poured him out
three fingers of Greek brandy.

“ The fact is, the car is here,” he said, “ but Rudolph
wants more money for it now. He says it is worth at least
two hundred.”

Always this haggling !

“ Two hundred fiddlesticks : I’ll give you what I
agreed or nothing.”

“ Rudolph won’t part with it for less. He had to bribe
Liman’s chauffeur, the night watchman, the police
corporal, the sergeant at the gate.”

“ You can tell Rudolph to go to hell,” I said, “ Either
you have bought the car and will sell it to us, or you
haven’t.”

“ We haven’t bought it.”

“ Then what are we talking about ? ”

“ We’ve taken it. Taken it out of the garage and we’ve
had to square so many people that there won’t be any-
thing left for Rudolph or me.”

“ I see. . . . Well, there won’t be much left of Rudolph
or you if your chief hears that you tried to bilk us.”

Francesco took a little more brandy.

“ I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “ But on my word of
honour, when you see the car you’ll give us what we ask.”

” Bring her to the garden gate if you mean business.
But hurry up. We can’t wait all night,”

“ I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

I went upstairs to get a coat. The wind had come and
the rain had stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Heavy
clouds swept across the moon. Below me the Golden
Horn was not gold now, but all silver and still in the
pale light. Across its gleam rose Stambul, tier upon
tier, dome upon dome, to where the conquering Sultans

STAMBUL SUBMITS

275

had built their mosques of pride and power. Over there
for three centuries the seed of the Renaissance had lain
fallow under the crescent of Byzantium, and for three
centuries Christendom had trembled at the Turkish hosts
fighting under the same sign. Now the crescent of Islam
would go down. . .

I had not waited more than five minutes — ^no doubt the
car had been round the comer all the time — ^when I heard
the comfortable sound of a well-tuned engine. The
Merc6d& came creeping up, with headlights blinded.

Peter and I went down to the garden, skirted a per-
forming bear who was snoring in the tool-shed, and
threw open the gate.

There she stood, ticking over contentedly. The Prussian
was at the wheel — ^a blond, handsome youth — and
Francesco lolled in the place of the late leader of the
Turkish hosts.

“ Back her in here,” I said, lighting up the posterns
with an electric torch.

“ How much ? ”

“ We’ll talk of the price later.”

It was a narrow and difficult entrance, for there was a
pond just inside the gate which had to be circumvented
by going forward and backing on the other lock. The car
was on one side of the pond : the bear on the other.

The bear’s mistress was a girl in a travelling circus,
who lodged him with us so that he should not be stolen
by the hordes of gypsies who prowled about the city
for loot. She came to feed him twice a day, and it was
a touching sight to see him waving his platter to her
and whimpering with pleasure when they met in the
morning. With us, however, he was not so tender : I used

276 GOLDEN HORN

sometimes to offer him a banana on the end of a walking
stick : that was the nearest I dared approach : he used
to consume his fruit sulkily, keeping a remarkably red
and vicious eye on me the while. Yet if I ever passed
without giving him anything, he called down ursuline
curses on my head.

During the manoeuvring of the Mercdd^s, the bear had
awakened, and was now scratching his head. He knew all
about night moves with his circus, but our whispering
made him inquisitive : he began to yammer and yowl
and hug himself.

Francesco heard him and ran round to the far side of
the car, shivering like a whipped bitch.

“ It’s a pet of ours,” I explained.

I flashed my torch, disclosing the bear sweeping the
mud with his huge forepaws. When the light shone in his
eyes, he made an apoplectic gesture as if trying to undo
his collar, and sprang at us with a roar. Fortunately
the chain held.

“ Seeing you in the darkness he must have mistaken
you for tliicves,” said Peter.

When we were safely seated at a table, Rudolph and
Francesco began disputing between themselves as to
which of them should receive our money.

“ I took the car,” said the Prussian — “ and I’m going
to take the cash,”

“ How do you know that either of you will take it ? ” I
asked,

“ Well, you said you’d give a hundred and fifty, didn’t
you ? ” said Rudolph. “ I thought we had explained ”

“ We may give you a hundred and thirty-five . . .

“ Then I’m off,” said Rudolph, brusquely.

“ All right I ” said Peter, “ But naind the bear I ”

STAMB0L SUBMITS 277

Rudolph sat down again, and lit a cigarette.

Francesco now announced that he was fed up with the
whole business, and was willing to take what we offered,
provided we paid it at once. Rudolph nodded his assent
sulkily, but he looked more cheerful when he saw the bag
of sovereigns.

We made thirteen cylinders of ten pounds each, and
half a cylinder. Our accomplices examined these without
touching them — ^to do so would have been a breach of
underworld etiquette.

Just as I was about to ask them to collect their reward,
all the lights in the house went out. Peter drew his
automatic pistol, and stood by the door, expecting them
to make an attempt to bolt.

But they were as surprised as we were : Pera was
plunged in darkness : we thought that the thunderstorm
had fused the switches, and only learned the true reason
on the following day, when the newspaper arrived. The
electric light had been cut off at the main in order to
help the flight of Taalat, Enver and Djemal Pashas, who
had escaped disguised, and in fear of death, from the
city they had ruled as kings. ^

After finding and lighting some candles we checked
over the money and allowed it to be removed from the
table by Francesco and Rudolph alternately : then we
gave them a cigar and a tot of brandy apiece and saw
them off the premises.

Before going to bed, we inspected our trophy by candle-
light, and found it in excellent condition. The tyres were

^ Taalat went to Germany, where he was murdered by an Armenian ;
Enver died fighting at Bokhara, his body so riddled with bullets that he
would have been unrecognisable but for the fact that his wife^s letters
were found next to his heart ; and Djemal was poisoned in the Caucasus.
So passed a triumvirate who cost the British Empire dearly in blood and
treasure.

GOLDEN HORN

278

nearly new, the bodywork was good : everything was
intact : in a side-pocket we found a diary in German and
a ration book. A knife, fork, spoon, and part of a pork pie
were in another wallet, together with a couple of sparking
plugs.

We went back to the house, found half a tin of plum
jam, and presented it to the bear. The Merc^d^s was safer
in his keeping than it would have been in any garage.

* * » * *

On October the 30th the Armistice was signed, but
still no one appeared to claim the car we had bought
with British gold. It was not until a week later, on Nov-
ember 7th, while Peter and I were dining at the Pera
Palace Hotel, that we saw a British Colonel and a Naval
Commander at an adjoining table.

The Colonel ordered a whisky and soda with his meal,
but the waiter insisted on serving him with champagne.
An air of restrained excitement pervaded the hotel. In
the street outside a great crowd had gathered, burning
with curiosity.

After dinner we followed the representatives of the
Allies into a large reception room. The orchestra stood up
and played “ God Save the Kang ” : the German and
Austrian oflficers present walked out gravely, with their
ladies, and a bevy of Greek girls showered confetti upon
the bald head of the British Colonel. It all seemed
like a dream still, and I kept looking over my shoulder
for a policeman to hale me back to prison.

Next morning, before handing the Mcrc^d^is over, we
drove out in her to make some purchases. We left her for
a moment outside the Ottoman Bank : on our return we
found a Dog Collar Man standing beside her.

STAMBUL SUBMITS 279

“ This is General Liman von Sanders’ property,” he
said. “ Who are you ? ”

“ That’s not your afTair,” I answered, feeling the
strangeness of my reply.

In the past fortnight I had lived through a lifetime of
change.

“ It is my affair,” he said, with the admirable
patience which the Turkish police continued to display
during this difficult time. “ This is a German car, zind
I believe it to be stolen.”

We had started up the engine while he was speaking.

“ How do you know it’s a German car ? ”

“ There is an eagle on the panel.”

“ The Eagle is out of business ! ” said Peter as he
slipped in the gear and stepped on the throtde,

* * * *

At last, on November the 13th— just three years after
I had crashed in ’Iraq — the morning arrived when six-
teen miles of fighting ships steamed slowly through the
Dardanelles and cast anchor off the Golden Horn.

Men said that this would be the end of Turkey. But
Stambul in defeat was the womb from which Angora

EPILOGUE

Lunch — books — cigarettes (they allow you to smoke
on the Italian Air Mail from Brindisi to Constantinople)
— cotton-wool for my ears. Pronto ! The hatch is closed :
the starter coughs : the engines roar : our fat black under-
wing drags whitely through the Mediterranean. We are
heading for Athens exactly on time.

After reading a page or two (did my eyes close ?) I see
the pink rocks of Corfu between patches of cloud and sun-
shine. Corfu with the Kaiser’s villa. What a lot has hap-
.pened since then ! It is old history already, although
lived not yet twenty years ago, and millions died in the
making of it.

Fantastic shapes wriggle in the wind-streaked sea
below us : the Isles of Greece. There’s Missolonghi : more
history. And the Gulf of Corinth. The wind has dropped :
we are gliding over the mirror of an archipelago. Paxos.
Antipaxos. Chalchis. In spite of the clouds there is an
intense refracted light, and I can see deep, deep down
into the hyaline waters. I wonder, did Athena suffer from
cold feet in her chariot, coming from Zeus to men ?

We have arrived. The voice of the engines fades away
as we dip towards Phaleron. Athens lies rosily before us.

One million four hundred thousand people were trans-
ported from Turkey into Greece after Mustafa Kcmal
had defeated the Big Ideas ofVenizelos and Lloyd George.
Ideas are like mistresses, apt to be traitresses if they come
too glibly to men’s lips. They should not be bandied about,
but rule men as good women do, in secret

The captivities of the Jews and migrations of the Middle

PMo .* ymoitit

YEATS-BROWN AS HE IS TO-DAY

EPILOGUE

281

Ages were small affairs compared to the terrible uprooting
of the peoples of the Near East in 1923. What would we
do in England to-day if the whole population of Canada
suddenly arrived at our ports ? That is relatively what
happened to Greece nine years ago.

Some of the refugees held dead children in their arms,
not knowing where to bury them, or gave birth to them
on the quayside : many were starving : almost all were
destitute. Into a little country of five million people,
undeveloped and staggering under a crisis, a human
flood poured in, threatening to overwhelm her. But what
seemed like a disaster proved to be a source of strength.
Greece had received a revivifying blood-transfusion after
her defeat in Asia Minor, and to-day Athens is a city of
800,000 people, with a great future.

On to Turkey. Sunrise over Hymettus is glorious : it
lights the marble of the Acropolis and gilds the shabby
Piraeus into the semblance of fairyland. Outside, the
sirocco lashes the Mediterranean into a temper, but it is
blowing behind us, taking us to Constantinople at a
hundred and fifty miles an hour.

Down there, off Skyros, a steamer is pitching and roll-
ing ; we bump a bit, but not so giddily as sea-borne craft.
Sappho’s isle looms up through the storm-wrack to the
south-east of us : does her spirit see us sweeping with ‘an
iron-throated roar over the coasts she loved ?

Can that be Mudros, so soon ? Can those be the .Egean
Isles, the Trojan beaches, the hills of Gallipoli — ^mere
hillocks they seem, up here — ^where so many good men
died ? Rider Cljde has gone ; sold to a Levantine fig
merchant.

Was all our effort useless at the Dardanelles? The
sacrifice of the Munsters and Dublins and Lancashire

aSa GOLDEN HORN

Fusiliers in that crimsoned water, the cries of men sink-
ing amidst twisted steel and broken spars, the prodigies
of valour performed by the Australians at Chanak Bair,
Birdwood’s cleverly concealed troops creeping up from
Anzac Cove on a moonless midnight, the submarines who
ventured into the jaws of death — was all this in vain ?
A thousand times. No ! There are those who would have
us forget the courage of soldiers, saying that to glorify
national exploits dims the lustre of the larger world of the
future, but these easy sophistries of internationalism are
nonsense, dangerous nonsense.

All that I have written of my experiences, or of the
deeds of others, has been an indirect plea for peace, but
where would Turkey be to-day, I ask myself, if she had
allowed the councils of Europe to decide her fate where I
left her, under the guns of the Allied Fleet ?

The Treaty of Sevres is the answer. Turkey was deter-
mined to live. She lived, at great cost to herself, by de-
feating Greece at the Sakaria and by humiliating Europe
at the Lausanne Conference. She lived — as in the last re-
sort all men and nations do — by virtue of her inner
strength ; and she is now working out her own contribu-
tion to the common culture of humanity. No amount of
talk round Conference tables could have achieved this
without fighting : those of us who support the League of
Nations should not blink the facts, however disagreeable
they may be.

For myself, I believe that peace is a balance, not a fixed
condition, and that it should be maintained on a basis of
nationalism. An Utopia of sharply-contrasted peoples,
each with its own culture and religion, yet living in amity,
is no more difficult to conceive than an elaborately inter-
nationalised world-order in which the failure of one part

EPILOGUE 283

would throw all the rest into confusion. We have need of
flags and frontiers for centuries to come, perhaps for ever.
No doubt for ever. Odious as war is, it would be prefer-
able to the deadening peace of an insect-like industrialism.

But these far horizons are beyond all living sight, while
the marvellous panorama of the Golden Horn lies radiant
below me. My luck is in : the weather has lifted : the
enchantress of Europe and Asia remains on the surface
as I knew and loved her fourteen years ago : there is the
suburb of Psamattia, from which we escaped, and the
warren of Sirkedji, where we hid, and Galata Bridge, and
the Tower of Christ in Pera. . . .

Half life is memory, the other half anticipation.

*****

I have returned to the Armenian Patriarchate ; revisited
the ancient walls of Constantinople : passed an hour at
the place where the Sleepless Ones kept vigil ; searched
out the doorstep on which Peter and I waited one sum-
mer night of an almost unbelievable remoteness ; and
walked in the Seraglio Gardens where I first met the
White Lady. The bench on which we sat is still there, but
the planes and myrtles round it have grown, and the
passers-by are brisker. But then this is the winter season,
and we are in the Turkey of Mustafa Kemal.

A Turkish lady journalist is showing me the sights of
Constantinople, and has brought me to the Dormitory of
the White Eunuchs in the Seraglio Gardens. One of the
caretakers is a plump little dwarf eunuch.

“ He hates women,” my guide says (she is pretty and
aged about twenty). “ When I first came here with visitors
he used to scream and turn his back on me. Now he knows
better.”

284 GOLDEN HORN

It is true : the dwarf has learned to tolerate the
Newer Eve of New Turkey, but he still mistrusts them
both.

Handcuffs are hanging on the wall of the Dormitory,
and a great stick with a thong in it, in which the feet of
those about to be bastinadoed were twisted. I know, for
I have seen it in use. The dwarf knows, too. But my
friend, who speaks seven languages and writes for the
newspapers, was a child when such things were abolished.

The sight of her, which rejoices my eyes, makes the
dwarf hysterical ; while the sight of a man being bastina-
doed, which made me sick, probably beats cock fighting
for the dwarf. The world goes strangely, especially here,
where a whole nation has exchanged the scimitar of Islam
for the text-books of the infidels.

New Turkey is poor, but her people remember the days
of her greatness. In the Chamber of the Sultans we view
the effigies of the rulers of the House of Othman ranged
in order of their succession from Muhammed the Con-
queror to Muhammed the Reformer, dressed in their
original robes, decked with their real jewels, armed with
their splendid weapons. Three of the emeralds in the Con-
queror’s dagger are as large as eggs, and the triple tiara of
rubies that crowns Suleiman the Magnificent gleams with
a memory of the blood he shed for Roxelana’s sake : the
room glitters with evidences of a virile, perhaps cruel, but
certainly spacious past. We were wrong in Europe when
we spoke of “ the unchanging East.” The East has stirred
from its centuries of sleep and is changing very rapidly.
Already Mustafa Kemal has conquered more than cities ;
his greatest victories have been over the minds of a people
almost as stubborn as the English. Something dynamic
will be let loose upon the world from Asia, as has

EPILOGUE 285

happened in times past, for the Great War was but the
prelude to the gathering of invisible forces from Angora
to Pekin.

These forces come from the soul of the East, which has
found itself again after a thousand years of meditation ;
while we in the West, sick with the congestion of our
lusts, starved in our imaginations, and busy with undis-
criminating activities, are in danger of losing ours.

In the Baghdad Kiosk, so gracious with its white marble
and blue tiles, I can sense the peace of the Kief. For the
sake of the Kief, under many names and forms, all the
martial races of Asia have sacrificed much of what we call
liberty. They have wanted peace as only men of action
can, and having found that greater freedom, have lost the
lesser so prized by the babbling democracies of the West.

I shut my eyes, trying to summon the ghosts of those
who lived here when the Seraglio contained the best brains
and the stoutest hearts in Europe. Alas, my guide will not
let me rest ! She wants to show me modern Constanti-
nople, and says that we shall be late forteaat the Tokat-
lian. I must go. It is useless to linger here : her voice has
emptied the divans, silenced the zither and drum : the
dancers have gone, and those who watched. “ The spider
has become the watchman of the royal abode and spread
his curtain over the doorway.”

Modern Constantinople does not keep me long. Loti
would look in vain for his “ d^senchantdes ” in Pera or
Stambul : they are all unveiled : they have learned the
new ways and the new spelling : they drink kokteyles, hold
hands in cinemas, go to their hairdressers for permanent
ondulasyon ; dress, dance, eat and drink in the stand-
ardised fashion of the women of Europe and America.
What wiE they make of their country ? WEI they crown

GOLDEN HORN

286

the work which their soldiers began ? Who knows ? It is
certain that Turkey is destined to influence all the East
profoundly.

Away to Angora ! Here in these lean uplands is the
heart of a renascent race. I have talked to many of its
leaders, but not to the Ghazi himself, who remains sullen
and inaccessible in his cottage at Tchan-Kaya, where al-
most as many legends are beginning to accumulate round
him as once round the Red Sultan in Yildiz Kiosk. Before
I leave, however, I catch a glimpse of him, passing through
the lobby of my hotel on his way to a State dinner. He is
short, grey in the face, stouter than I expected, but with
the pale, strange eyes of his photograph. He has made
history. Who am I to say that as an incarnation he is
disappointing ?

I shall return to the West with no prophecies and no
judgments.

*>•>**

And now that I am back in Rome, in the Church of
Santa Maria in Ara Coeli upon the Capitoline Hill, it is
hard to believe that I ever sat in the Maritza restaurant
while a vortex of intrigue swirled round me, that I was
once a German governess, and a Hungarian mechanic,
and a buyer of stolen property. . . .

It is strange how time has already worn away the sharp-
ness of my days in Turkey. I am only a shadow moving
through those squalid and bloody years. The pain of them
has largely gone, and seems fantastic now, and often
scarcely credible. But friendship stands secure.

Middle-aged now, less flexible and intuitive, but carry-
ing more gear of all sorte— some of it like the White

EPILOGUE 287

Knight’s — I want to draw back the curtain of the years,
and see myself as I was in boyhood.

The Santissimo Bambino Benedetto is locked in his
shrine. The sacristan opens it for me, pulls the image out
by jerks under a hard electric light.

The eyes are painted brown : they are not jewels as
I had imagined. The cheeks are chubby. The body is
covered in gold and brass chains, gold watches and cheap
watches, rich crosses and poor crosses, pearl necklaces and
bead necklaces. The crown of the Pope’s gift would give
any child a headache. In a corner of the shrine a packet
of letters is lying : letters which arrive daily from all parts
of the world, and are read and then burnt by the friars.

So this is my Bambino ! He is a little disappointing
to-day, like Mustafa Kemal.

Yet I am not disillusioned : I am only changed and
aged by the war.

When my own self alters so much with the passing of
years, how can I believe in the survival of human per-
sonality ? Why should I remain the straying atom that
I am, a bundle of characters held together by a thread of
conventional identity, instead of merging into the glory
and beauty of life ? I cling to the hope that the creature
is not distinct from the Creator, and that Christ taught
monism when He said “ I Jind my Father are One.”

To other boys and girls the reality of the Child will
come. For me, the Bambino is merely an image reflecting
the love of the little brother of Saint Francis who fashioned
him so well, and the affection of those who for five cen-
turies have brought their homage here. The vision of
childhood is denied me now. I have changed, but He is
constant in His high Church overlooking Rome.

I

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